-THE  FAITH  OF~ 
THE  PEOPLES  POET 


DANIEL  L,  MARSH 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 


JAMES  WHITCOMB  II  ILK Y 
The  People's  Poet 


THE  FAITH 

of  the 

PEOPLE'S  POET 


DANIEL  L.  MARSH 


D27 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT  1920 
TH«  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  State*  of  America 


•WAUNWORTH   A   CO. 

•OOK    UANUFACTUIKR* 

•AOOKLVN.    N.    r. 


THE  AUTHOR 

AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATES 
THIS  BOOK  TO  HIS  WIFE 

HARRIET  TRUXELL  MARSH 


1003327 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  PEOPLE'S  POET     .     .     ..    ^    .    >,      11 
II    THE  FAITH  OF  JAMES  WHITCOMB  RILEY      38 

III  "His  VOICE  MAKES  NATIVE  CHOICE  OF 

NATURE'S  HARMONY"      .....      58 

IV  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    GOD    IN    RILEY'S 

RHYMES »     .     .     .     106 

V    THE   CHRIST   IN   RILEY'S   RHYMES — A 

CHRISTMAS  MEDITATION      ....._    135 

VI    THE  CROSS  IN  RILEY'S  RHYMES — A  PAS 
SION  WEEK  MEDITATION      .    A    ..     .     145 

VII    SIN     .........     ...     .     156 

VIII    RILEY'S  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY — AN 

EASTER  MEDITATION 177 

IX    PRACTICAL  RELIGION — HUMBLE  SERVICE    205 
X    PATRIOTISM  IN  RILEY'S  RHYMES  .  230 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE 
PEOPLE'S  POET 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

ONCE  upon  a  Chautauqua  platform  I  delivered 
a  lecture-recital  entitled  "James  Whitcomb 
Riley,  Our  Typical  American  Poet."    At  the  close 
of  the  lecture-recital,  a  preacher  who  was  present 
said  to  me : 

"I  do  not  agree  with  your  subject.  I  do  not  think 
that  James  Whitcomb  Riley  is  the  'typical  American 
poet/  " 

In  my  reply  I  insisted  that  while  he  wrote  for  the 
human  heart  the  world  around,  yet  he  was  thor 
oughly  American  in  his  heredity,  his  residence,  his 
themes  and  his  habits  of  thought. 

"With  all  of  this,  I  will  agree,"  responded  my 
critic;  "but  still  I  do  not  think  your  subject  is  true.'* 

"In  what  particular?"  I  inquired. 
11 


12        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"Simply  because  I  do  not  consider  him  a  poet  at 
all,"  was  the  rejoinder. 

"Pray,  then,  what  is  he?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,"  he  replied,  "just  a  rhymster — just  a  rhym- 
ster.  I  like  to  think  of  a  poet  as  one  who  deals  with 
the  great  profound  things  of  life  in  a  profound  way. 
Now  Riley's  stuff  is  simple,  shallow,  flung  off  in  a 
hurry.  I  would  not  call  him  a  poet  at  all." 

I  report  this  only  because  it  is  so  thoroughly  ex 
ceptional.  Out  of  the  tens  of  thousands  of  people 
before  whom  I  have  spoken  on  Riley,  that  is  the 
only  time  I  have  ever  heard  anybody  raise  a  doubt 
about  his  enduring  poethood ;  and  thus,  by  striking 
contrast,  the  genuineness  of  my  thesis  is  demon 
strated,  that  James  Whitcomb  Riley  is  the  typical 
American  poet  of  this  generation. 

And  yet,  my  preacher  friend  gave  voice  to  a  very 
common  heresy:  that  anything  that  is  simple  and 
easily  understood  is  not  profound  and  has  not  re 
quired  much  work.  People  often  imagine  that  any 
thing  that  is  abstruse  and  involved  and  difficult  to  be 
seen  through  is  the  product  of  great  labor  and  pro 
found  thought. 

But  did  you  ever  stop  to  think  that  when  you  can 
not  see  to  the  bottom  of  a  stream,  it  is  not  necessar- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        13 

ily  because  it  is  so  deep:  maybe  it  is  just  muddy! 
It  requires  far  more  work  and  far  more  brains  to 
express  a  profound  truth  simply  than  to  enshroud 
it  in  the  vagueness  of  high-sounding  phrases. 

Riley  mastered  the  magic  secret  of  poetry:  sim 
plicity!  He  steered  clear  of  choriambics  and  hen- 
decasyllabic  verse.  That  is  one  reason  why  he  is 
the  People's  Poet.  But  in  his  simple  style  he  dealt 
with  the  profoundest  thoughts  of  life.  What  are 
the  profoundest  thoughts  of  life?  God,  man,  sin, 
conscience,  immortality,  patriotism,  nature.  Did 
Riley  deal  with  these  subjects  in  a  profound  way? 
In  answer  I  ask  only  that  you  read  the  following 
chapters  of  this  book. 

But  his  simple  verses  were  not  "just  flung  off." 
For  the  most  part  they  are  the  result  of  assiduous 
toil.  He  told  me  once  when  I  called  on  him  in  his 
home  in  Lockerbie  Street,  Indianapolis,  that  he  had 
always  done  his  best  work  at  night,  after  the  rest 
of  the  household  had  retired  and  he  locked  his  door 
and  worked  alone.  He  said  that  sometimes  he 
worked  for  a  whole  night  on  a  single  line  of  poetry. 
Once  he  remarked  to  a  friend  that  he  had  always 
done  more  work  with  the  rubber  end  of  his  pencil 
than  with  the  point  of  it !  It  is  well  for  young  peo- 


14        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

pie  to  be  told  that  story;  for  excellence  never  lies 
this  side  of  drudgery.  Pope  knew  what  he  was  talk 
ing  about  when  he  said : 

"Pensive  poets  painful  vigils  keep, 

Sleepless  themselves  to  give  their  readers  sleep." 

The  magic  and  the  mystery  of  the  poet  is  to  trans 
figure  life  and  its  environment,  under  the  stimulus 
of  emotion  and  prophetic  insight.  To  be  a  poem, 
this  transfiguring  speech  must  flow  in  measured 
pulse  and  conform  to  a  definite  word-pattern.  This 
throbbing  pulse-beat  which  we  call  rhythm  is  as 
essentially  the  life  of  the  poem  as  is  the  coursing 
warm  blood  the  life  of  the  body.  Everywhere  in 
the  universe  there  is  rhythm:  the  swinging  of  the 
stars  in  their  eternal  orbits  without  variation;  the 
succession  of  the  seasons;  the  beating  of  the  waves 
upon  the  beach;  the  throbbing  of  our  own  hearts. 
The  rhythmic  march  lightens  the  pack  upon  the  sol 
dier's  back,  and  the  rhythmic  movement  gives  pleas 
ure  to  the  folk-dancer.  Likewise,  whatever  may  be 
the  source  of  the  poet's  emotion,  his  verse  moves  to 
an  accordant  rhythm,  imparting  to  the  hearer  its 
own  energy  and  stirring  him  with  a  kindred  emo 
tion.  Note  how  true  this  is  of  the  quick  unbending 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        15 

march  of  Homer's  dactylic  hexameters,  narrating 
the  achievements  of  heroes;  of  the  majestic  flow  o.f 
Milton's  iambic  pentameter,  disclosing  a  drama  of 
Heaven  and  hell;  of  the  stately  soaring  flight  of 
Bryant's  Waterfowl;  of  the  quickening,  throbbing 
roll  of  Riley's  "The  Drum" : 

"O  the  drum ! 

There  is  some 

Intonation  in  thy  grum 

Monotony  of  utterance  that  strikes  the  spirit  dumb, 
As  we  hear, 

Through  the  clear 

And  unclouded  atmosphere, 
Thy  palpitating  syllables  roll  in  upon  the  ear  I 

"There's  a  part 
Of  the  art 

Of  thy  music-throbbing  heart 

That  thrills  a  something  in  us  that  awakens  with  a  start, 
And  in  rhyme 

With  the  chime 

And  exactitude  of  time, 
Goes  marching  on  to  glory  to  thy  melody  sublime." 

These  are  only  the  first  two  stanzas.  Read  the 
entire  poem  aloud  and  see  if  your  emotions  are  not 
stirred  the  same  as  if  you  were  listening  to  the  roll 
of  the  drum  at  the  head  of  a  column  of  marching 
soldiers  that  carry  the  old  flag  by! 


16        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Have  you  ever  been  walking  along  a  country  road 
when  a  shower  of  rain  came  up,  and  do  you  recall 
the  rhythmic  soft  sound  of  the  patter  of  the  rain 
drops  in  the  dust?  You  can  hear  it  again  in  a  stanza 
from  that  universally  popular  ballad  of  Riley's, 
"Out  to  Old  Aunt  Mary's": 

"It  all  comes  back  so  clear  to-day! 

Though  I  am  as  bald  as  you  are  gray,^ 
Out  by  the  barn-lot  and  down  the  lane 
We  patter  along  in  the  dust  again, 
As  light  as  the  tips  of  the  drops  of  the  rain, 
Out  to  Old  Aunt  Mary's." 

And  you  can  not  read  the  following  two  lines  from 
"When  the  Frost  Is  On  the  Punkin"  without  hear 
ing  the  hiss-swiss-siss-rasping  sound  of  frosted 
blades  of  corn  or  of  fallen  autumn  leaves  as  you 
wade  through  them : 

"The  husky,  rusty  russel  of  the  tossels  of  the  corn, 

And  the  raspin'  of  the  tangled  leaves,  as  golden  as  the  morn." 

Neither  can  you  read  aloud  the  following  two  lines 
without  hearing  the  ticking  of  a  clock : 

"O,  it  sets  my  hart  a-clickin',  like  the  tickin'  of  a  clock, 
When  the  frost  is  on  the  punkin  and  the   fodder's  in  the 
shock." 

In  all  of  Riley's  poetry  the  rhythm  is  faultless. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET         17 

But  it  takes  more  than  rhythm  to  make  a  poem. 
Mechanically  speaking,  the  musical  charm  of  all 
good  poetry  depends  upon  the  subtle  but  natural  ad 
justment  of  all  other  formal  elements  with  this  regu 
lating  and  harmonizing  effect  of  meter.  Words  are 
the  only  medium  of  expression  available  to  a  poet. 
A  musician  works  with  tone,  a  sculptor  with  form, 
and  a  painter  with  color ;  but  a  poet  must  work  with 
words.  Once,  so  a  story  goes,  an  inquisitive  friend 
said  to  Mr.  Riley : 

"I  understand  you  are  now  getting  a  dollar  a 
word  for  your  poetry.  Is  that  so?" 

When  Riley  confirmed  the  rumor,  the  inquisitive 
friend  continued : 

"Pretty  easy  money,  isn't  it?" 

To  which  the  poet  replied:  "It  is  if  you  can  find 
the  right  word !" 

Words  have  a  certain  sensuous  value  in  them 
selves.  When  they  are  used  by  a  poet  as  instru 
ments  of  beauty,  they  add  the  element  of  melody  to 
the  rhythmic  structure  of  a  poem.  The  simplest 
method  by  which  this  tonal  quality  is  secured  is 
rhyme,  which  is  the  correspondence  in  two  or  more 
words  or  lines  of  terminal  sounds  beginning  with 
an  accented  vowel,  preceded  by  different  consonant 


18        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

sounds,  as,  for  example,  "folds"  and  "golds,"  "pets" 
and  "lets,"  "spill"  and  "sill,"  etc.,  in  Riley's  "A 
Fruit  Piece"  : 

"The  afternoon  of  summer  folds 
Its  warm  arms  round  the  marigolds. 

"And,  with  its  gleaming  fingers,  pets 
The  watered  pinks  and  violets 

"That  from  the  casement  vases  spill 
Over  the  cottage  window-sill, 

"Their  fragrance  down  the  garden  walks 
Where  droop  the  dry-mouthed  hollyhocks." 

Another  part  of  the  melodic  element  is  allitera 
tion,  which  is  the  repetition  of  the  same  letter  or 
sound  in  two  or  more  words  in  the  same  line.  To 
make  good  poetry,  alliteration  must  never  be  forced 
or  strained  after  ;  it  must  be  so  natural  that  you  do 
not  know  it  is  there  until  you  stop  to  hunt  for  it, 
as  the  recurring  'W  in  this  line  from  "A  Tale  of 
the  Airly  Days"  : 

"Tell  me  a  tale  of  the  timber-lands,"-H 


or  the  two  ";V'  in  tnis  line  from  "Out  to 
Mary's"  : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        19 

"The  jelly — the  jam  and  the  marmalade," — 
or  the  two  'W  and  three  "p's"  in  this  line : 

"And  the  sweet-sour  pickles  of  peach  and  pear." 

It  is  really  a  fine  art  to  know  how  to  use  alliteration 
without  making  it  appear  to  be  striven  for — and 
Riley  has  mastered  the  art. 

Another  mark  of  good  poetry,  so  far  as  the  emo 
tional  and  sensuous  appeal  is  concerned,  is  an  abun 
dant  use  of  the  most  musical  letters  of  the  alphabet, 
namely,  "//'  "m"  and  "n."  But  here  again  the  use 
must  not  be  forced;  it  must  be  so  natural  that  we 
revel  in  the  sweet  music  of  the  poetry  without  hav 
ing  these  mellifluous  consonants  obtrude  themselves 
upon  our  notice.  Here,  also,  Riley  has  succeeded. 
As  an  illustration  of  this,  require  yourself  to  observe 
the  use  he  has  made  of  "//'  "m"  and  "n"  in  the  fol 
lowing  stanza  from  "Out  to  Old  Aunt  Mary's" : 

"And  the  old  spring-house,  in  the  cool  green  gloom 
Of  the  willow  trees, — and  the  cooler  room 
Where  the  swinging  shelves  and  the  crocks  were  kept, 
Where  the  cream  in  a  golden  languor  slept, 
While  the  waters  gurgled  and  laughed  and  wept — 
Out  to  Old  Aunt  Mary's." 

The  foregoing  stanza  is  also  a  good  illustration 
of  tone-color,  a  subtle  quality  which  suggests  the 


20        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

meaning  of  words  by  the  sound  and  value  of  their 
syllables,  as: 

"The  old  spring-house,  in  the  cool  green  gloom," 

or 

"Where  the  cream  in  a  golden  languor  slept," 

where  the  slow  change  in  vowel  quality  produces  a 
feeling  in  one  like  looking  at  that  part  of  a  picture 
where  the  shade  gradually  blends  with  the  light. 

Truly,  measured  by  all  these  standards,  Riley  is  a 
poet. 

But  poetry  is  more  than  the  painfully  exact  lan 
guage  of  the  class-room;  it  is  the  free,  capricious 
melody  of  nature.  It  is  more  than  the  thought-out 
music  of  the  head;  it  is  one  uninterrupted  voluntary 
of  the  heart.  It  is  more  than  rhyme  and  jingling 
sensibilities  and  measure  and  cadence;  it  is  the  ap 
plication  of  ideas  to  life.  Life  and  poetry  belong 
together.  When  they  are  divorced,  poetry  becomes 
artificial  and  anaemic,  and  life  becomes  sordid  and 
dull.  Mr.  Riley's  work  stands  out  preeminently 
because  of  its  naturalness,  exuberance,  vitality  and 
sincerity.  It  is  always  spirited,  fresh,  original  and 
full  of  the  sap  of  life.  His  poems  are  the  "genuine 
article,"  as  we  would  say  in  the  parlance  of  the 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        21 

street,  or  "The  Ginoine  Ar-tickle,"  as  he  calls  it  in 
the  Hoosier  dialect: 

"Talkin'  o'  poetry, — There're  few  men  yit 
'At's  got  the  stuff  b'iled  down  so's  it'll  pour 

Out  sorgum-like,  and  keeps  a  year  and  more 
Jes'  sweeter  ever'  time  you  tackle  it! 

Why,  all  the  jinglin'  truck  'at  hes  been  writ 
Fer  twenty  year  and  better  is  so  pore 
You  cain't  find  no  sap  in  it  any  more 

'N  you'd  find  juice  in  puff-balls !— AND  I'D 
QUIT! 

What  people  wants  is  facts,  I  apperhend; 
And  naked  Natur  is  the  thing  to  give 

Your  writin'  bottom,  eh?   And  I  contend 
'At  honest  work  is  allus  bound  to  live. 

Now  them's  my  views ;  'cause  you  kin  recommend 

Sich  poetry  as  that  from  end  to  end." 

But  not  only  is  he  a  poet,  he  is  the  Poet  of  the 
People.  His  poems  stand  the  final  test  of  the  mil 
lions.  He  has  endeared  himself  to  a  wider  range  of 
humanity  than  any  other  American  poet.  Our  most 
popular  poets  before  him  were  Longfellow  and 
Whittier,  and  their  most  popular  poems  were  "Hia 
watha"  and  "Snow-Bound."  But  neither  one  was 
ever  read  by  a  tithe  of  the  people  who  read  any  num 
ber  of  Riley's  rhymes.  Where  one  person  on  a 
beautiful  June  day  will  quote  the  opening  line  of 
Lowell's  "Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,"  a  dozen  people 


22        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

will  be  talking  about  Riley's  "Knee-Deep  in  June/' 
and  on  a  keen  frosty  autumn  morning  it  seems  as 
though  everybody  one  meets  were  familiar  with 
"When  the  Frost  is  on  the  Punkin  and  the  Fodder's 
in  the  Shock."  In  any  unselected  group  of  Amer 
icans,  read  the  titles  of  the  best-known  poems  of 
any  dozen  poets  you  please,  including  among  them 
Riley's  "An  Old  Sweetheart  of  Mine,"  and  have  the 
people  vote  by  ballot  the  poem  with  which  they  are 
most  familiar,  and  it  is  a  safe  guess  that  an  over 
whelming  majority  will  vote  "An  Old  Sweetheart 
of  Mine." 

The  responsive  tenderness  of  his  heart  has  won 
lettered  and  unlettered,  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low, 
because  it  finds  its  way  over  the  fruitful  levels 
where  men  are  equal.  He  has  glorified  the  emo 
tions,  sorrows,  struggles  and  triumphs  of  those  who 
live  and  toil,  love  and  are  true.  He  has  become  the 
Poet  Laureate  of  the  People,  not  by  any  royal  de 
cree  but  by  the  common  consent  and  judgment  of 
his  countrymen. 

He  is  a  bard  of  the  old  line — of  the  line  of  Burns, 
Shelley  and  Poe.  The  immortal  spirit  of  song  that 
moves  with  the  race,  singing  of  the  things  that  it 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        23 

loves,  was  truly  in  James  Whitcomb  Riley.  Shel 
ley  says  that  "Poets  are  the  hierophants  of  unappre- 
hended  inspiration;  the  mirrors  of  the  gigantic 
shadows  which  futurity  casts  upon  the  present." 
Possessors  of  this  spirit  of  song  are  all  one  tribe, 
whether  they  be  harpers  among  the  herdsmen, 
prophets  in  the  presence  of  kings,  minstrels  or  trou 
badours,  ballad  pedlers  or  poet  laureates.  They 
are  a  tribe  to  which  is  bequeathed  the  honor  and 
glory  of  preserving  whatever  is  fine  and  worth 
while  in  the  spirit  of  the  times. 

Superficial  people  think  that  Riley's  verses  are 
intensely  local;  they  dismiss  them  as  provincial. 
But  they  are  no  more  provincial  than  are  the  poems 
of  honey-lipped  Theocritus  who  sang  at  the  court 
of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  sixteen  hundred  years  be 
fore  Riley  sang  among  the  farmsteads  of  Indiana. 
There  is  no  apparent  polish  about  our  Poet  of  the 
People,  and  yet  even  his  most  idiomatic  and  uncouth 
Hoosier  dialect  verses  describe  relations  of  men, 
emotions  of  men,  yearnings  of  men,  beliefs  of  men 
that  are  common  to  the  race.  Nothing  human  is 
foreign  to  him.  There  is  something  spacious  and 
robust  in  his  humanity,  something  that  gives  it  a 


24        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

truly  Elizabethan  tone.  He  combines,  in  a  most  un 
usual  degree,  the  homespun  phrase  with  the  lyric 
feeling. 

The  love  of  a  man  for  a  maid  is  a  theme  that  has 
remained  unchanged,  unhackneyed,  inexhaustible. 
The  sentiment  that  was  felt  by  Daphnis  and  Chloe 
is  the  same  that  breathes  through  Riley's  "Farmer 
Whipple — Bachelor."  We  love  its  humanness  and 
its  homely  sincerity : 

"I  remember  onc't  in  harvest,  when  the  'cradle-in' '  was  done, 
(When  the  harvest  of  my  summers  mounted  up  to  twenty- 
one), 

I  was  ridin'  home  with  Mary  at  the  closin'  o'  the  day — 
A-chawin'  straws  and  thinkin',  in  a  lover's  lazy  way!" 

One  reason  why  he  is  so  popular  is  because  he 
is  so  thoroughly  real.  His  realm  is  on  the  unclouded 
confines  of  the  natural,  the  genuine,  the  true,  and 
there  he  delights  to  surround  himself  with  images 
of  beauty  and  of  sweet  confidence,  to  plant  his 
homes  and  fields  and  flower  gardens  in  a  day  upon 
which  the  sun  should  ever  shine.  He  is  real — that 
is  the  reason  why  men  read  him  and  love  him.  He 
wraps  round  all  of  his  poems  the  atmosphere  of  per 
fect  reality.  And  therefore,  in  "The  Rhymes  of 
Ironquill"  he  has  truly  pictured  the  way  in  which 


THE  FAITH  OP  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        25 

many  common  Americans  have  received  his  own 
poems.  The  man  professed  that  he  did  not  care  for 
poetry;  but  his  wife  brought  home  a  volume  of 
these  poems  which  were  true  to  nature,  and — well, 
let  Riley  tell  it : 

"And  then  she  made  me  read  the  thing, 

And  found  my  specs  and  all: 
And  I  jest  leant  back  there — i  jingl — • 

My  cheer  ag'inst  the  wall — 
And  read  and  read,  and  read  and  read, 

All  to  myse'f — ontil 
I  lit  the  lamp  and  went  to  bed 

With  Rhymes  of  Ironquill! 

"I  propped  myse'f  up  there,  and — durn! — 

I  never  shet  an  eye 
Till  daylight! — hogged  the  whole  concern 

Tee-total,  mighty  nigh! — 
I'd  sigh  sometimes,  and  cry  sometimes, 

Er  laugh  jest  fit  to  kill — 
Clean  captured-like  with  them-air  rhymes 

O'  that-air  Ironquill !" 

His  analytical  subtlety,  meticulousness,  refinement 
of  reasoning,  and  propriety  and  power  of  language 
— the  good  faith  with  which  he  manages  the  evoca 
tion  and  exhibition  of  his  real  and  common  and  at 
tractive  creations — enables  him  to  meet  and  master 
every  mood  of  his  readers,  so  that  people  who  would 


26        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

think  it  a  mark  of  weakness  to  be  caught  reading 
any  poetry  at  all,  and  especially  poems  of  sentiment, 
do  read  any  number  of  Riley's  rhymes,  and  cry  over 
his  poems  of  sentiment.  Take,  for  example,  "Thet- 
Air  Young-Un,"  which  tells  the  story  of  a  little  boy 
who  loved  to  wander  along  the  mill  stream,  who 
loved  nature  and  was  always  wondering  what  the 
water  was  talking  of,  and  one  day  they  missed  him, 
and — oh,  tears  blind  us,  for  it  is  the  story  of  the 
universal  father  of  all  little  children  who  have 
passed  out  of  sight  beyond  the  River  of  Death : 

"Found  his  hat  'way  down  below 
Hinchman's  Ford. — 'Ves'  Anders  he 
Rid  and  fetched  it.  Mother  she 
Went  wild  over  that,  you  know — 
Hugged  it!  kissed  it! — Turribul! 
My  hopes  then  was  all  gone  too.   .   .   . 
Brung  him  in,  with  both  hands  full 
O'  warter-lilies — 'peared-like  new- 
Bloomed  fer  him — renched  whiter  still 
In  the  clear  rain,  mixin'  fine 
And  finer  in  the  noon  sunshine.    .    .   ." 

Provincial?  Oh,  no!  He  conjured  situations 
that  might  have  arisen  in  Sicily  sixteen  hundred 
years  ago  or  in  Judea  four  thousand  years  ago ;  and 
•which  will  keep  on  recurring  as  long  as  human  be- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        2£ 

ings  shall  inhabit  the  earth.  He  dug  beneath  the 
problems  of  the  passing  day  for  his  inspiration.  The 
tears  in  his  verse  are  for  the  common  heartaches  of 
humanity.  He  wraps  this  universality  of  appeal  in 
an  atmosphere  of  perfect  reality.  Look  at  "Nothin' 
to  Say"  with  this  in  mind :  You  can  feel  the  utter 
loneliness  of  the  old  man  who  has  an  only  daughter, 
and  she  wants  to  get  married,  and  she  has  come  to 
ask  her  father  whether  he  has  any  objection,  and 
it  makes  the  heartbroken  old  man  yearn  for  her 
mother  who  has  been  dead  these  many  years,  and 
he  feels  that  he  can  not  give  his  daughter  up,  yet 
he  does  not  want  to  interfere  with  her  happiness, 
so  with  a  loving  sob  he  repeats  over  and  over, 
"Nothin'  to  say" : 

"Nothin'  to  say,  my  daughter !   Nothin'  at  all  to  say ! 
Gyrls  that's  in  love,  I've  noticed,  giner'ly  has  their  way! 
Yer  mother  did,  afore  you,  when  her  folks  objected  to  me — 
Yit  here  I  am  and  here  you  air!  and  yer  mother — where  is 
she? 

"You  look  lots  like  yer  mother :  purty  much  same  in  size ; 
And  about  the  same  complected ;  and  favor  about  the  eyes : 
Like  her,  too,  about  livin'  here,  because  she  couldn't  stay; 
It'll  'most  seem  like  you  was  dead  like  her ! — but  I  hain't  got 
nothin'  to  say. 


28        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"She  left  you  her  little  Bible — writ  yer  name  acrost  the  page— 
And  left  her  ear-bobs  f er  you,  ef  ever  you  come  of  age ; 
I've  alluz  kep'  'em  and  gyuarded  'em,  but  ef  yer  goin'  away — 
Nothin'  to  say,  my  daughter !   Nothin'  at  all  to  say ! 

"You  don't  rickollect  her,  I  reckon?  No:  you  wasn't  a  year 
old  then! 

And  now  yer — how  old  air  you?  Wy,  child,  not  'twenty'! 
When? 

And  yer  nex'  birthday's  in  Aprile?  and  you  want  to  git  mar 
ried  that  day? 

I  wisht  yer  mother  was  livin'  1 — but  I  hain't  got  nothin'  to  say  I 

"Twenty  year  1  and  as  good  a  gyrl  as  parent  ever  found ! 
There's  a  straw  ketched  on  to  yer  dress  there — I'll  bresh  it  off 

— turn  round. 

(Her  mother  was  jes'  twenty  when  us  two  run  away.) 
Nothin'  to  say,  my  daughter !   Nothin'  at  all  to  say  I" 

It  is  this  universality  of  appeal  that  has  made 
Riley  so  beloved.  The  laughter  in  his  verse  is  not 
at  the  broad  Rabelaisian  humor  of  some  passing 
Hoosier  barnyard  joke;  it  is  rather  the  whimsical 
humor  that  is  the  common  chuckle  of  humanity — a 
humor  which  no  man  with  any  sense  of  humor 
would  ever  try  to  define.  His  humor  is  unsophisti 
cated.  It  is  not  the  glittering  epigram  nor  the  sting 
ing  social  satire  that  delights  him,  but  the  homely 
characterization,  the  humor  of  childhood,  the  jest 
that  is  agreeable  through  its  piquancy,  as  "The  Old 
Tramp" : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        29 

"A'  old  Tramp  slep'  in  our  stable  wunst, 

An'  the  Raggedy  Man  he  caught 
An'  roust  him  up,  an'  chased  him  off 

Clean  out  through  our  back  lot! 

"An'  the  old  Tramp  hollered  back  an'  said, — 
'You're  a  purty  man ! — You  air ! — 

With  a  pair  o'  eyes  like  two  fried  eggs, 
An'  a  nose  like  a  Bartlutt  pear !' " 

The  quintessence  of  humor  is  the  element  of  sur 
prise.  Riley  has  it.  His  humor  is  elfish.  In  such 
a  poem  as  "The  Flying  Islands  of  the  Night"  he 
gives  free  rein  to  his  fondness  for  the  bizarre  and 
the  odd  in  coining  words  and  images.  But  his 
humor  is  always  kindly.  There  is  never  any  sting 
in  it.  There  is  never  any  sting  in  anything  he 
writes.  Once  "To  a  Poet-Critic"  he  wrote: 

"Yes, — the  bee  sings — I  confess  it — 
Sweet  as  honey — Heaven  bless  it! — • 
Yit  he'd  be  a  sweeter  singer 
Ef  he  didn't  have  no  stinger." 

He  is  a  thoroughly  wholesome  poet.  It  was  his 
proud  boast  that  he  had  never  written  a  line  that 
could  not  be  read  by  any  person  or  anywhere. 

His  training  to  be  the  People's  Poet  was  good,  not 
only  while  he  studied  in  the  public  school  or  the 


30        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Greenfield  Academy  or  his  father's  law  office;  but 
more  particularly  in  his  childhood  home, 

"A  simple  old  frame  house — eight  rooms  in  all — 
Set  just  one  side  the  center  of  a  small 
But  very  hopeful  Indiana  town," — 

and  wandering  sun-tanned  and  bare-footed  "Up  and 
Down  Old  Brandywine"  creek,  plunging  into  the 
"Old  Swimmin'  Hole,"  wandering  at  will  across 
richly  scented  clover  fields,  through  the  hazel 
thickets, 

"And  then  in  the  dust  of  the  road  again ; 

And  the  teams  we  met,  and  the  countrymen ; 
And  the  long  highway,  with  sunshine  spread 
As  thick  as  butter  on  country  bread, 
Our  cares  behind,  and  our  hearts  ahead 
Out  to  Old  Aunt  Mary's"  ;— 

or  as  a  young  man  bowling  over  the  country  with 
a  patent  medicine  show,  or  painting  signs,  or  loaf 
ing  with  farmers,  or  reporting  for  a  country  news 
paper,  learning  the  little  tragedies  and  comedies  of 
our  common  life  which  he  later  wove  with  such 
marvelous  skill  into  his  poems,  and  mastering  also 
the  Hoosier  dialect  which  became  music  upon  his 
lips.  As  he  said  of  Lewis  D.  Hayes  when  he  died, 
so  we  say  of  Riley : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        31 

"Though  he  knew  Man's  force  and  his  purpose, 

As  strong  as  his  strongest  peers, 
He  knew,  as  well,  the  kindly  heart, 

And  the  tenderness  of  tears." 

He  read  omnivorously.  He  knew  about  the  sor 
rows  of  the  Greek  gods,  and  the  stories  of  the 
heroes  of  old,  and  the  problems  of  other  ages;  but 
the  poems  he  has  written  are  the  sort  of  poems 
Theocritus  would  write  if  he  were  living  in  Indiana 
to-day.  "How,"  asks  Carlyle  in  his  Essay  on  Burns, 
"How  does  the  poet  speak  to  men  with  power  but 
by  being  still  more  a  man  than  they?"  That  fits 
Riley.  Once,  in  accepting  his  poem  entitled,  "In 
Swimming-Time,"  the  editor  of  the  Century  Mag&- 
zine  wrote  Mr.  Riley  as  follows:  "I  must  say  that 
there  is  nobody  at  present  writing  who  seems,  to  me, 
to  get  so  much  of  genuine  human  nature  in  a  short 
space,  as  you  do."  If  you  think  this  is  too  strong, 
read  the  following  lines  picked  from  the  middle  of 
his  poem  on  "A  Pen-Pictur'  of  a  Cert'in  Friwolus 
Old  Man" : 

"  'Oh  I'  he  says,  'to  wake  and  be 
Barefoot,  in  the  airly  dawn 

In  the  pastur' ! — thare,'  says  he, 
'Standin'  whare  the  cow's  slep'  on 


32        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

The  cold,  dewy  grass  that's  got 

Print  of  her  jest  steamy  hot 
Fer  to  warm  a  feller's  heels 
In  a  while ! — How  good  it  feels  !' " 

If  you  were  not  brought  up  on  a  farm  you  will  not 
be  able  to  appreciate  that,  and  if  you  were  brought 
up  on  a  farm  no  comment  is  necessary. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  common  people.  He  knew 
poverty.  He  knew  what  it  was  to  struggle  fiercely, 
tragically,  for  existence.  He  knew  what  it  was  to 
have  the  world  turn  its  cold  shoulder  on  him.  He 
knew  the  sadness  and  disappointment  of  seeing  the 
flowers  he  plucked  turn  to  ashes  in  his  hands.  More 
than  once  he  felt  baffled  and  almost  beaten  in  life's 
fierce  battle.  Later  he  became  well-to-do,  rich  in 
deed,  from  his  lectures  and  the  royalty  on  his  books. 
He  was  lionized  and  feted  by  the  great  ones  of 
earth.  Honors  were  showered  upon  him.  But  the 
money  and  fame  that  came  to  him  added  nothing  to 
his  inspiration,  nothing  to  his  happiness.  He  was 
still  the  Poet  of  the  People,  faithfully  revealing 
human  nature.  In  "Down  to  the  Capital,"  he  nar 
rates  the  story  of  two  men  who  had  been  chums  in 
their  young  manhood  in  Indiana.  The  one  had  be 
come  rich  and  was  now  a  Congressman  at  Washing- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        33 

ton.  The  other  was  a  poor  old  soldier  who  had  gone 
to  Washington  to  call  on  his  old  friend  and  get  him 
to-  secure  a  pension  for  him.  The  poor  man  returns 
home,  and  is  telling  his  neighbors  about  his  visit — 
about  the  fine  home  that  his  old  friend  has,  and 
about  a  reception  that  was  given  in  it,  and  then  how 
the  rich  man  crept  out  with  the  poor  man,  and  be 
moaned  the  artificiality  of  his  high-priced  life: 

"  'And  all  I  want,  and  could  lay  down  and  sob  fer,  is  to  know 
The  homely  things  of  homely  life;  fer  instance,  jes'  to  go 
And  set  down  by  the  kitchen  stove — Lord !  that  'u'd  rest  me 

so, — 
Jes'  set  there,  like  I  ust  to  do,  and  laugh  and  joke,  you  know. 

"  'Jes'  set  there,  like  I  ust  to  do,'  says  Fluke,  a-startin'  in ; 
'Peared-like,  to  say  the  whole  thing  over  to  hisse'f  ag'in; 
Then  stopped  and  turned,  and  kind  o'  coughed,  and  stooped 

and  fumbled  fer 
Somepin'  o'  'nuther  in  the  grass — I  guess  his  handicercher. 

"Well,  sence  I'm  back  from  Washington,  where  I  left  Fluke 

a-still 

A-leggin'  fer  me,  heart  and  soul,  on  that-air  pension  bill, 
I've  half-way  struck  the  notion,  when  I  think  o'  wealth  and 

sich, 
They's  nothin'  much  patheticker'n  jes'  a-bein'  rich!" 

It  is  because  his  song  is  so  human  that  the  com 
mon  people  hear  him  gladly — and  so  do  the  masters 
of  literature.  His  poems  will  stand  as  an  expres- 


sion  of  the  tastes  and  qualities  of  the  people  of  this 
age.  His  personality  loves  the  cheery  and  hopeful 
things,  clings  to  simplicity,  discovers  the  quaintly 
humorous  near  at  hand,  and  sings  life's  pathos  with 
compassion,  a  home-keeping  and  home-loving  poet, 
depending  upon  common  sights  and  sounds  for  his 
inspirations,  and  engrossed  with  the  significance  of 
facts.  He  wants  what  the  people  want,  "Somep'n 
Common-Like" : 

"Somep'n  'at's  common-like,  and  good 
And  plain,  and  easy  understood ; 
Somep'n  'at  folks  like  me  and  you 
Kin  understand,  and  relish,  too, 
And  find  some  sermint  in  'at  hits 
The  spot,  and  sticks  and  benefits. 

"We  don't  need  nothin'  extry  fine; 
'Cause,  take  the  run  o'  minds  like  mine. 
And  we'll  go  more  on  good  horse-sense 
Than  all  your  flowery  eloquence; 
And  we'll  jedge  best  of  honest  acts 
By  Nature's  statement  of  the  facts. 

"So  when  you're  wantin'  to  express 
Your  misery,  er  happiness, 
Er  anything,  'at's  wuth  the  time 
O'  telling  in  plain  talk  er  rhyme — 
Jes'  sort  o'  let  your  subject  run 
As  ef  the  Lord  wuz  listenun." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        35 

That  is  the  kind  of  poetry  he  wrote,  and  that  is 
the  kind  of  man  he  was.  A  defect  of  character 
in  many  otherwise  great  people  is  egotism.  It  has 
been  called  a  "respectable"  sin,  but  the  qualifying 
adjective  does  not  make  it  any  less  a  sin.  Mr.  Riley 
has  wonderfully  drawn  his  own  picture,  uncon 
sciously,  in  certain  words  that  he  records  of  Eras 
mus  Wilson.  Those  of  us  who  know  Erasmus 
Wilson  know  that  they  fit  him,  too.  Our  poet  com 
mends  him  for  his  modesty,  humility  and  natural 
ness — all  of  them  great  qualities  and  all  of  them 
marks  of  the  real  man.  As  what  we  speak  of  as 
"common  sense"  is  generally  the  most  uncommon 
commodity  in  any  community,  so  also  a  common 
man,  the  kind  we  like  and  the  kind  the  Poet  of  the 
People  was,  is  really  very  uncommon,  indeed : 

"You're  common,  as  I  said  afore — 
You're  common,  yit  oncommon  more.—- 
You  allus  kindo'  'pear,  to  me, 
What  all  mankind  had  ort  to  be — • 
Jest  natchurl,  and  the  more  hurraws 
You  git,  the  less  you  know  the  cause — 
Like  as  ef  God  Hisse'f  stood  by, 
Where  best  on  earth  hain't  half  knee-high, 
And  seein'  like,  and  knowin'  He 
'S  the  Only  Grate  Man  really, 
You're  jest  content  to  size  your  hight 
With  any  feller  man's  in  sight. — " 


36        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Big,  kind,  modest  Erasmus  Wilson,  to  whom 
Riley  inscribed  the  poem  from  which  the  above  lines 
are  taken,  once  after  the  whole  country  had  joined 
in  celebrating  Riley's  birthday,  spoke  of  him  as 

follows : 

i 

"As  the  poet  is  one  who  sees  and  can  tell,  our  poet 
is  one  who  sees  clearly  things  that  are  dim  and  hazy 
to  us ;  senses  distinctly  things  that  are  vague  dreams 
to  us,  and  carries  us  to  joyous  heights  where  we 
cannot  climb  alone.  Truly  he  is  our  prophet  re 
vealing  life  to  us. 

"The  fact  that  so  very  many  of  us  read  Riley 
proves  that  he  is  our  sort  of  a  poet.  And  we  are  all 
the  better  for  reading  him,  because  he  tells  us  the 
things  we  want  to  know,  or  that  we  only  half  know, 
thereby  interesting  us  in  things  wholesome  and  help 
ful. 

"And  that  is  just  what  all  this  jubilation  was 
about,  and  not  because  a  big,  bumptious,  egotistic 
fellow,  with  a  section  of  the  alphabet  appended  to 
his  name,  had  climbed  onto  a  treacherous  pedestal 
and  bade  us  look  upon  him. 

"Our  poet  lives  in  little  Lockerbie  Street,  but  he 
belongs  to  no  single  town  or  city  or  state.  His  mis 
sion  being  to  the  people,  not  alone  to  the  learned  and 
great,  but  to  the  common  people,  his  home  is  with 
them,  not  exactly  'boardin'  around/  but  living  with 
them." 

Truly,  Riley  himself  has  sized  up  the  People's 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        37 

Poet  in  these  lines  he  wrote  on  "The  Poet  of  the 
Future" : 

"O  the  Poet  of  the  Future !  He  will  come  as  man  to  man, 

With  the  honest  arm  of  labor,  and  the  honest  face  of  tan, 

The  honest  heart  of  lowliness,  the  honest  soul  of  love 

For  human-kind  and  nature-kind  about  him  and  above. 

His  hands  will  hold  no  harp,  in  sooth ;  his  lifted  brow  will  bear 

No  coronet  of  laurel — nay,  nor  symbol  anywhere, 

Save  that  his  palms  are  brothers  to  the  toiler's  at  the  plow, 

His  face  to  heaven,  and  the  dew  of  duty  on  his  brow." 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  FAITH  OF  JAMES  WHITCOMB  RILEY 

NOTWITHSTANDING  his   immense   popu 
larity,  very  few  people  ever  even  think  of 
James  Whitcomb  Riley  as  a  religious  poet.     "Oh, 
yes,"  they  say,  "he  wrote  of  home  and  children  and 
nature — but  religion :  No !" 

Wordsworth  described  poetry  as  "the  impassioned 
expression  which  is  the  countenance  of  all  science" ; 
"the  first  and  last  of  all  knowledge" ;  "as  immortal 
as  the  heart  of  man."  If  Wordsworth  has  not  over 
stated  the  matter  (and  he  has  not),  it  follows  that 
no  one  can  be  the  best  poet  without  a  high,  heroic 
idea  of  religion.  No  poet  can  properly  be  described 
as  religious  simply  because  of  the  recurrence  of  holy 
phrases  in  his  poems ;  but  rather  because  of  the  spirit 
which  permeates  the  whole,  as  an  incandescent  bulb 
shines  through  an  alabaster  vase.  James  Russell 
Lowell  asserts  that  reverence  is  the  very  primal 

38 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        39 

essence  and  life  of  poetry.  "From  reverence  the 
spirit  climbs  on  to  love,  and  thence  beholds  all 
things."  Here  again  Riley  is  not  found  wanting. 
Reverently  does  he  contemplate  the  universal  laws 
of  the  soul.  I  have  read  with  care  every  line  of 
his  Complete  Works,  and  have  been  deeply  im 
pressed  how  he,  as  a  true  seer,  often  brings  to  view 
fragments  of  the  broken  table  of  God's  law,  and 
makes  known  the  meaning  thereof  to  his  generation. 
He  rarely  or  never  invokes  the  mythologies.  He 
shows  a  strict  adherence  to  the  ancient  beliefs  and 
pieties.  There  is  in  him  nothing  of  the  modern 
skeptical  mockery  which  indulges  itself  in  facetious 
flippancies,  counting  nothing  too  sacred  for  its  acid 
jests. 

There  are  some  people  in  whom  the  questioning, 
doubting  spirit  has  grown  so  strong  that  they  say 
they  can  not  believe.  There  are  some  who  think  it 
smart  to  say  that  they  do  not  believe;  there  are 
others  who  with  hungry  eyes  and  aching  heart  say 
that  they  wish  they  could  believe.  Mr.  Riley  strikes 
the  nail  squarely  on  the  head  when  he  says,  "We 
Must  Believe,"  the  motif  of  which  is:  "Lord,  I  be 
lieve  ;  help  Thou  mine  unbelief."  Mr.  Riley  says  that 
from  birth  we  are  endowed  with  love  and  trust,  and 


40        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

that  just  as  instinctively  as  the  child  believes  in  the 
parent,  so  we  must  believe  in  God.  He  says  we 
must  believe,  because  we  have  been  impelled  from 
infancy  to  seek  some  clear  fulfillment  withheld  from 
seekers  here  on  earth.  We  do  not  find  the  perfec 
tion  or  the  glories  for  which  we  are  seeking.  We 
have  seen  its  promise  in  the  glories  of  the  physical 
universe  and  the  tear  of  sodden  sorrow: 

"We  must  believe — 

Being  from  birth  endowed  with  love  and  trust—; 
Born  unto  loving; — and  how  simply  just 
That  love — that  faith !— even  in  the  blossom-face 
The  babe  drops  dreamward  in  its  resting-place, 
Intuitively  conscious  of  the  sure 
Awakening  to  rapture  ever  pure 
And  sweet  and  saintly  as  the  mother's  own. 
Or  the  awed  father's,  as  his  arms  are  thrown 
O'er  wife  and  child,  to  round  about  them  weave 
And  wind  and  bind  them  as  one  harvest-sheaf 
Of  love — to  cleave  to,  and  forever  cleave.  .  .  . 
Lord,  I  believe : 

Help  Thou  mine  unbelief. 

"We  must  believe — 

Impelled  since  infancy  to  seek  some  clear 

Fulfilment,  still  withheld  all  seekers  here;— 

For  never  have  we  seen  perfection  nor 

The  glory  we  are  ever  seeking  for : 

But  we  have  seen — all  mortal  souls  as  one — t 

Have  seen  its  promise,  in  the  morning  sun— » 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        41 

Its  blest  assurance,  in  the  stars  of  night;— 

The  ever-dawning  of  the  dark  to  light; — 

The  tears  down-falling  from  all  eyes  that  grieve — 

The  eyes  uplifting  from  all  deeps  of  grief, 
Yearning  for  what  at  last  we  shall  receive.   .   .   . 
Lord,  I  believe: 

Help  Thou  mine  unbelief. 

"We  must  believe : 

For  still  all  unappeased  our  hunger  goes, 

From  life's  first  waking,  to  its  last  repose: 

The  briefest  life  of  any  babe,  or  man 

Outwearing  even  the  allotted  span, 

Is  each  a  life  unfinished — incomplete: 

For  these,  then,  of  th'  outworn,  or  unworn  feet 

Denied  one  toddling  step — O  there  must  be 

Some  fair,  green,  flowery  pathway  endlessly 

Winding  through  lands  Elysian !   Lord,  receive 

And  lead  each  as  Thine  Own  Child — even  the  Chief 
Of  us  who  didst  Immortal  life  achieve.   .  .  . 
Lord,  I  believe: 

Help  Thou  mine  unbelief." 

No  real  objection  can  be  raised  against  making 
the  affirmation  of  the  deep  things  of  religion  by 
faith.  Faith  is  the  sixth  sense  of  the  soul.  It  is  a 
worthy  organ  of  confidence  in  spiritual  things. 
Riley  holds  in  his  "Uncle  Sidney's  Views"  that  the 
true  age  of  wisdom  is  when  we  are  boys  and  girls 
and  know  things  because  we  believe  them  no  matter 
whether  they  agree  with  laws  or  not : 


42        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"It  is  faith,  then,  not  science  and  reason,  I  say, 
That  is  genuine  wisdom. — And  would  that  to-day 
We,  as  then,  were  as  wise  and  ineffably  blest 
As  to  live,  love  and  die,  and  trust  God  for  the  rest !" 

Riley  had  a  good  religious  foundation.  He  was 
descended  from  a  long  line  of  devout  Christians. 
His  grandmother  on  his  father's  side,  Margaret 
Slick  Riley,  often  preached — not  licensed,  but  by 
privilege.  She  had  two  brothers  who  were  Meth 
odist  preachers.  His  grandfather  Marine,  on  his 
mother's  side  of  the  house,  was  also  a  Methodist 
preacher.  We  find  traces  of  Riley's  affection  for 
his  preacher  grandfather  in  several  of  his  early 
poems,  notably  in  "The  Old-Fashioned  Bible," 
printed  in  1881,  before  he  had  caught  the  eye  of 
Fame.  In  it  we  can  see  the  little  boy  with  corn- 
silk  white  hair,  and  wide  blue  eyes,  gazing  with 
wonder  upon  the  "gravely  severe"  face  of  the  Meth 
odist  preacher — his  grandfather!  Ah!  blessed  days 
when  the  future  poet  laureate  of  the  people  went  to 
the  Methodist  meeting-house,  to  hear  his  grand 
father  preach.  Let  him  tell  it  in  his  own  way : 

"How  dear  to  my  heart  are  the  scenes  of  my  childhood 

That  now  but  in  mem'ry  I  sadly  review ; 
The  old  meeting-house  at  the  edge  of  the  wildwood, 

The  rail  fence  and  horses  all  tethered  thereto ; 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        43 

The  low,  sloping  roof,  and  the  bell  in  the  steeple, 

The  doves  that  came  fluttering  out  overhead 

As  it  solemnly  gathered  the  God-fearing  people 

To  hear  the  old  Bible  my  grandfather  read. 

The  old-fashioned  Bible — 

The  dust-covered  Bible — 

The  leathern-bound  Bible  my  grandfather  read. 

"The  blessed  old  volume  1  The  face  bent  above  it — 

As  now  I  recall  it — is  gravely  severe, 
Though  the  reverent  eye  that  droops  downward  to  love  it 

Makes  grander  the  text  through  the  lens  of  a  tear, 
And,  as  down  his  features  it  trickles  and  glistens, 

The  cough  of  the  deacon  is  stilled,  and  his  head 
Like  a  haloed  patriarch's  leans  as  he  listens 

To  hear  the  old  Bible  my  grandfather  read. 
The  old-fashioned  Bible — 
The  dust-covered  Bible — 
The  leathern-bound  Bible  my  grandfather  read. 

"Ah !  who  shall  look  backward  with  scorn  and  derision 

And  scoff  the  old  Book  though  it  uselessly  lies 
In  the  dust  of  the  past,  while  this  newer  revision 

Lisps  on  of  a  hope  and  a  home  in  the  skies? 
Shall  the  voice  of  the  Master  be  stifled  and  riven? 

Shall  we  hear  but  a  tithe  of  the  words  He  has  said, 
When  so  long  He  has,  listening,  leaned  out  of  Heaven 

To  hear  the  old  Bible  my  grandfather  read? 
The  old-fashioned  Bible — 
The  dust-covered  Bible — 
The  leathern-bound  Bible  my  grandfather  read." 

In  answer  to  an  inquiry  of  mine,  Mr.  Edmund 
H.  Eitel,  of  Indianapolis,  editor  of  the  poet's  com- 


44        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

plete  works,  his  nephew  and  sometime  secretary, 
wrote  me  as  follows : 

"Mr.  Riley  once  told  me  that  he  was  a  member 
of  the  Methodist  Church,  and  I  said,  'Are  you  still 
a  member?'  because  I  had  heard  that  he  had  joined 
on  probation,  but  was  never  actually  taken  into  the 
church.  He  replied,  'I  am  a  member  of  the  Meth 
odist  Church.'  So  the  story  I  heard  was  not  quite 
correct.  As  a  young  man  he  was  blackboard  artist 
in  the  Sunday  School,  and  a  very  effective  black 
board  artist,  too.  Many  of  his  first  recitations  were 
given  in  churches,  as  for  instance,  one  of  his  early 
appearances  in  Indianapolis  was  in  the  Roberts  Park 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  at  which  time  he  re 
cited  The  Bear  Story/  This  was  in  1874." 

It  has  been  said  that  "the  cheery  optimism,  tol 
erance  and  mercy  that  are  the  burden  of  his  verse 
summed  up  his  religion."  And  yet  he  had  some 
very  definite  beliefs. 

He  believed  in  God.  Through  a  number  of  years 
Mr.  Riley  wrote  a  long  poem  of  one  hundred  and 
five  stanzas,  which  he  titled  the  "Rubaiyat  of  Doc 
Sifers."  It  was  written  two  quatrains  on  a  single 
white  card  and  these  were  thrown  aside  in  a  hap 
hazard  manner  through  the  years.  They  were  all 
written  in  the  same  verse-form  and  not  having  any 
special  contiguity  of  plan  resemble  somewhat  the 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        45 

"Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam/'  but  they  are  diamet 
rically  opposed  to  the  spirit  and  faith  of  Omar's 
poem.  This  Doc  Sifers  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  an 
historical  character,  but  one  that  Mr.  Riley  devel 
oped  in  his  own  imaginings  until  he  came  to  love  the 
character  with  an  ardent  love.  He  himself  says  that 
his  poem  is  an  indirect  reply  to  the  epicurean  pes 
simism  and  cynicism  found  in  the  other  Rubaiyat. 
Doc  Sifers  is  "a  picture  of  a  wholesome,  helpful, 
industrious  man — a  doctor  with  hale  faith  in  God 
and  man,  in  contrast  to  the  old  Persian's  utterly 
hopeless  doctrine."  In  many  respects,  "Doc  Sifers" 
is  Riley  himself.  Again  and  again  our  poet  affirms 
his  faith  in  the  overruling  Providence  of  a  God 
who  is  all-wise,  merciful  and  kind.  Take,  for  ex 
ample,  this  stanza  from  the  "Rubaiyat  of  Doc 
Sifers": 

"Doc  argies  'at  'The  Rey-eyed  Law,'  as  he  says,  'ort  to  learn 
To  lay  a  mighty  leenient  paw  on  deeds  o'  sich  concern 
As  only  the  Good  Bein'  knows  the  wherefore  of,  and  spreads 
His   hands   above  accused   and   sows   His   mercies   on   their 
heads.' " 

He  believed  in  Christ  and  the  gospel  He  came  to 
proclaim.  A  friend  of  mine,  the  Reverend  Doctor 
W.  W.  Hall,  was  holding  evangelistic  meetings  in 


•46        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Riley's  boyhood  home,  Greenfield,  Indiana,  in  the 
fall  of  1914,  less  than  two  years  before  the  poet's 
death.  Mr.  Riley  sent  him  a  poem  which  he  had  en 
titled  "The  Evangelist,"  with  this  greeting : 

"These  lines  are  a  greeting  to  you  and  an  epitome 
of  your  first  sermon  in  Greenfield.  You  are  at  lib 
erty  with  them." 

And  then  followed  the  "lines"  as  follows : 

"Hail,  Harbinger  of  God's  Good  News! 
'Good  News'  to  pulpits  and  to  pews: — 
Oh,  hear  His  voice  in — 'Peace  Be  still,' 
And  dwell  entwined  in  His  sweet  will. 

"  'The  Purpose  ?'  Ah,  with  glad  accord, 
Put  on  the  armor  of  the  Lord, 
And  forth  to  battle ! — all  as  one, — 
The  fight!   The  fight!   Is  now  begun! 

"  'The  Plan  ?' — 'Tis  writ  with  pencil  pure, — 
Line  and  dimension  straight  and  sure: — 
Inquire  of  Him — 'Lord,  what  to  do?' 
Then  let  Him  have  His  way — in  you. 

"The  Motive?'  That  all  tongues  confess 
To  Him — our  Hope  and  Righteousness  1 
Tho'  now  the  view  be  darkly  dim, — 
Through  faith  we'll  win  the  world  to  Him ! 

"'And  Victory?'  It  will  be  won! 
God's  Promise — through  His  Promised  Son! 
We'll  sing  it  in  the  realms  above — 
Enraptured  by  Enraptured  Love!" 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        47 

He  believed  in  the  immortal  life.  Like  most  of 
the  great  realities  of  religion,  he  personally  sub 
mitted  it  to  the  test  of  experience.  Marcus  Dickey 
in  his  revelatory  Youth  of  James  Whitcomb  Riley 
speaks  of  the  terrific  loneliness  and  sorrow  that 
came  into  the  young  man's  life  through  the  sudden 
death  of  his  mother.  Mr.  Dickey  quotes  Riley  as 
saying : 

"I  was  alone,"  said  he,  "till  as  in  a  vision  I  saw 
my  mother  smiling  back  upon  me  from  the  blue 
fields  of  love — when  lo !  she  was  young  again.  Sud 
denly  I  had  the  assurance  that  I  would  meet  her 
somewhere  in  another  world.  I  was  gathering  the 
fruit  of  what  had  been  so  happily  impressed  on  me 
in  childhood.  I  had  seen  that  the  world  is  a  stage. 
Now  I  saw  that  the  universe  is  a  stage.  Another 
curtain  had  been  lifted.  My  mother  was  enraptured 
at  the  sight  of  new  scenery.  It  was  the  dream  of 
Heaven  with  which  'Johnny  Appleseed'  had  im 
pressed  my  mother  in  the  Mississinewa  cabin." 

He  believes  so  profoundly  in  Immortality  that  he 
even  runs,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  into  the 
argument  from  Evolution,  which,  let  us  not  forget, 
teaches  us  not  only  the  survival  of  the  fittest  (and 
may  we  not  say  that  a  belief  that  has  survived 
through  all  the  centuries  of  human  existence  such  as 
this  firm,  steadfast  belief  in  the  existence  of  God, 


48        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

and  a  life  beyond  the  grave  is  evidently  a  fit  belief 
to  survive)  ;  but  it  also  teaches  us  that  for  every 
natural  faculty,  appetite,  or  instinct  there  is  some 
thing  that  will  answer;  and  so  Mr.  Riley  insists  that 
our  hunger  which  goes  unappeased  from  life's  first 
waking  to  its  last  repose;  the  feeling  that  life  is 
somehow  unfinished,  incomplete;  these  argue  that 

"O  there  must  be 

Some  fair,  green,  flowery  pathway  endlessly 
Winding  through  lands  Elysian !   Lord,  receive 

And  lead  each  as  Thine  Own  Child — even  the  Chief 
Of  us  who  didst  Immortal  life  achieve.   .    .    . 
Lord,  I  believe: 

Help  Thou  mine  unbelief." 

He  believed  in  the  forgiveness  of  sin.  After  he 
had  made  that  sad  blunder  of  the  Poe  Poem  hoax, 
and  the  world  turned  its  cold  shoulder  upon  him, 
and  in  his  despair  he  began  to  dissipate,  then,  in  re 
pentance  he  wrote  to  an  understanding  friend,  as 
recorded  by  Marcus  Dickey : 

"My  steps  are  turning  gladly  toward  the  light, 
and  it  seems  to  me  sometimes  I  almost  see  God's 
face.  I  have  been  sick — sick  of  the  soul,  for  had  so 
fierce  a  malady  attacked  the  body,  I  would  have 
died  with  all  hell  hugged  in  my  arms.  I  can  speak 
of  this  now  because  I  can  tell  you  I  am  saved." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        49 

Forgiveness  does  not  extinguish  the  deeds  of  the 
past;  but  it  does  rearrange  the  relations  between 
the  spirit  of  man  and  our  Heavenly  Father,  remov 
ing  the  barriers  which  sin  erected  between  them. 
Riley's  "The  Song  I  Never  Sing"  tells  the  story  of 
redeeming  love  that  brings  salvation  to  the  sin- 
dimmed  soul.  Like  a  passionate  evangelist  he  pours 
forth  the  apostrophe  of  the  last  stanza : 

"O  nameless  lay,  sing  clear  and  strong, 

Pour  down  thy  melody  divine 
Till  purifying  floods  of  song 
Have  washed  away  the  stains  of  wrong 
That  dim  this  soul  of  mine! 
O  woo  me  near  and  nearer  thee, 
Till  my  glad  lips  may  catch  the  key, 
And,  with  a  voice  unwavering, 
Join  in  the  song  I  never  sing." 

He  believed  in  Humanity.  He  believed  in  man 
"As  Created" : 

"There's  a  space  for  good  to  bloom  in 
Every  heart  of  man  or  woman, — 
And  however  wild  or  human, 

Or  however  brimmed  with  gall, 
Never  heart  may  beat  without  it; 
And  the  darkest  heart  to  doubt  it 
Has  something  good  about  it 
After  all." 


50        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

In  1907  Mr.  Riley  published  a  poem  bearing  the 
caption  "What  Title,"  which  was  a  tribute  to  Presi 
dent  Theodore  Roosevelt,  in  which  he  asks  what 
title  best  befits  our  first  American.  Then  he  runs 
over  certain  names :  statesman,  soldier,  hero,  chief, 
leader,  patriot,  orator,  president,  chief  executive,  but 
is  not  satisfied  with  any  of  these  as  the  best  title  by 
which  to  describe  the  one  to  whom  he  is  paying  the 
tribute.  There  is  something  greater  than  any  of 
these — and  that  word  is  MAN.  There  is  no  cheap 
thought  of  man  connected  with  this.  He  recognizes  ^ 
each  individual  as  sprung  of  Heaven's  first  stock; 
and  these  are  the  words  with  which  the  beautiful 
tribute  ends : 

"Nay — his  the  simplest  name — though  set 

Upon  him  like  a  coronet, — 

God  names  our  first  American 

The  highest,  noblest  name — The  Man." 

He  was  a  believer  in  the  common  man.  He  be 
lieved  in  the  laboring  man  as  well  as  in  the  great 
president.  In  "A  Child's  Home — Long  Ago,"  he 
says: 

"'Twas  God's  intent 

Each  man  should  be  a  king — a  president ; 
And  while  through  human  veins  the  blood  of  pride 
Shall  ebb  and  flow  in  Labor's  ruling  tide, 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        51 

The  brow  of  toil  shall  wear  the  diadem, 

And  justice  gleaming  there,  the  central  gem, 

Shall  radiate  the  time  when  we  shall  see 

Each  man  rewarded  as  his  works  shall  be. 

Thank  God,  for  this  bright  promise !   Lift  the  voice 

Till  all  the  waiting  multitudes  rejoice." 

It  is  one  of  the  familiar  teachings  of  scripture 
that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  and  Mr.  Riley 
only  restated  this  doctrine  in  the  poem  "To  Uncle 
Remus,"  when  he  says : 

"The  Lord  who  made  the  day  and  night, 
He  made  the  Black  man  and  the  White; 

So,  in  like  view, 

We  hold  it  true 
That  He  hain't  got  no  favorite." 

"The  Hired  Man's  Faith  in  Children"  is  Mr. 
Riley's  faith  also.  It  is  a  faith  in  humankind  that  is 
absolutely  necessary  in  the  one  who  would  touch 
humankind  to  lift  it  up. 

"I  believe  all  childern's  good, 
Ef  they're  only  understood, — 
Even  bad  ones,  'pears  to  me, 
'S  jes*  as  good  as  they  kin  be!" 

He  believed  in  practical  religion.  There  is  a 
strange  kinship  between  "Doc  Sifers"  and  Christ's 
illustrations  of  religion.  Christ  announced  His  own 
program  as  one  of  practical  service:  preaching  to 


52        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

the  poor,  healing  the  broken-hearted,  recovering 
sight  to  the  blind  and  delivering  the  captives.  When 
John's  disciples  came  inquiring  for  His  credentials, 
He  simply  pointed  to  the  deeds  of  mercy  and  serv 
ice  that  He  had  rendered  others.  So  Riley  speaks 
of  lovable  "Doc  Sifers" : 

"Without  a-claimin'  any  creed,  Doc's  rail  religious  views 
Nobody  knows — ner  got  no  need  o'  knowin'  whilse  he  choose 
To  be  heerd  not  of  man,   ner   raise  no   loud,   vainglorious 

prayers 
In  crowded  marts,  er  public  ways,  er — i  jucks,  anywheres! — 

"  'Less'n  it  is  away  down  in  his  own  heart,  at  night, 

Facin'   the  storm,   when   all  the  town's   a-sleepin'  snug  and 

tight— 
Him  splashin*  hence  from  scenes  o'  pride  and  sloth  and  gilded 

show, 
To  some  pore  sufferer's  bedside  o'  anguish,  don't  you  know  1" 

Riley  strikes  no  false  note.  He  is  a  sane  and 
wholesome  optimist,  guiding  our  dispositions  away 
from  the  paths  of  sin.  There  are  two  kinds  of  sins. 
One,  sins  of  the  body;  they  are  coarse,  crude  and 
vulgar;  the  other  the  sins  of  disposition;  they  are 
more  or  less  "refined" :  selfishness,  and  jealousy,  and 
egotism,  and  an  unforgiving  spirit,  and  grouchiness, 
are  sins  in  the  sight  of  God,  nevertheless.  Mr.  Riley 
has  no  use  for  the  grouch.  The  Savior  entered  into 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        53 

the  joys  of  the  wedding  feast,  and  laughter,  and 
the  music  of  the  prodigal  returned,  and  all  the  com 
mon  joys  of  the  common  life;  and  He  began  his 
tremendous  Sermon  on  the  Mount  by  an  eightfold 
repetition  of  the  word  "happy"  in  intensified  form. 
And  Mr.  Riley,  in  his  quaint  style,  gives  beautiful 
expression  to  this  wholesome  theology  in  his  lines 
"On  Any  Ordenary  Man  in  a  High  State  of  Laugh- 
ture  and  Delight,"  when  he  says : 

"As  it's  give'  me  to  perceive, 

I  most  cert'in'y  believe 

When  a  man's  jest  glad  plum  through, 

God's  pleased  with  him,  same  as  you." 

He  believes  in  the  old  home.  In  "Ike  Walton's 
Prayer,"  which  is  a  lyric  of  great  worth,  we  have  a 
man  who  prays  not  for  gold  and  jewels,  and  lands 
and  kine,  but  for  a  humble  home  with  the  light  and 
joy  of  home;  and  for  a  woman  who  would  make  of 
their  simple  home  a  place  divine,  and  for  just  a  wee 
cot  and  love.  He  prays  not  for  great  riches  or  vast 
estates  and  castle  halls,  but  for  the  simple  things 
that  make  life  really  worth  the  living:  children,  sun 
shine,  and  the  gentle  breeze  and  the  fragrance  of 
blossoms,  and  the  songs  of  birds,  and  again  the  wee 
cot  He  prays  not  that  man  may  tremble  at  his 


54        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

power  of  place  and  lordly  sway,  but  he  prays  for 
the  confidence  of  his  neighbor ;  and  again : 

"The  wee  cot,  and  the  cricket's  chirr, 
Love,  and  the  glad  sweet  face  of  her." 

Or  again,  you  can  feel  a  heart-throb,  not  a  mere 
metrical  ictus,  in  the  lines : 

"We  must  get  home :  All  is  so  quiet  there : 
The  touch  of  loving  hands  on  brow  and  hair — 
Dim  rooms,  wherein  the  sunshine  is  made  mild — 
The  lost  love  of  the  mother  and  the  child 
Restored  in  restful  lullabies  of  rain, — 
We  must  get  home — we  must  get  home  again ! 

"We  must  get  home  again — we  must — we  must ! — 

(Our  rainy  faces  pelted  in  the  dust) 

Creep  back  from  the  vain  quest  through  endless 

strife 

To  find  not  anywhere  in  all  of  life 
A  happier  happiness  than  blest  us  then.    .   .   . 
We  must  get  home — we  must  get  home  again  I" 

He  believes  in  patriotism.  His  love  of  the  old 
flag  and  his  devotion  to  America  are  sublime.  Let 
us  see  his  self -revelation  again  in  "Doc  Sifers" : 

"Yes-jtr/    Doc's  got  convictions  and   old-fashioned  kind  o' 

ways 

And  idies  'bout  this  glorious  Land  of  Freedom ;  and  he'll  raise 
His  hat  clean  off,  ho  matter  where,  jes'  ever'  time  he  sees 
The   Stars   and    Stripes   a-floatin'   there   and   flappin'   in   the 

breeze. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        55 

"And  tunes  like  old  'Red-White-and-Blue'  '11  fairly  drive  him 

wild, 
Played  on  the  brass  band,  marchin'  through  the  streets  1   Jes' 

like  a  child 

I've  saw  that  man,  his  smile  jes'  set,  all  kind  o'  pale  and  white, 
Bareheaded,  and  his  eyes  all  wet,  yit  dancin'  with  delight!" 

Riley  has  faith  in  nature.  He  loves  it  with  an 
ardent  love.  He  opens  our  eyes  to  see  the  wonder 
of  things  as  they  are.  Take,  for  example,  a  couple 
of  stanzas  out  of  "The  Poems  Here  at  Home" : 

"What  We  want,  as  I  sense  it,  in  the  line 
O'  poetry  is  somepin'  Yours  and  Mine — 
Somepin'  with  live  stock  in  it,  and  out-doors, 
And  old  crick-bottoms,  snags,  and  sycamores: 
Putt  weeds  in — pizen-vines,  and  underbresh, 
As  well  as  johnny-jump-ups,  all  so  fresh 
And  sassy-like ! — and  groun'-squir'ls, — yes,  and  'We,' 
As  sayin'  is, — 'We,  Us  and  Company !' 

"Putt  in  old  Nature's  sermonts, — them's  the  best, — 

And  'casion'ly  hang  up  a  hornets'  nest 

'At  boys  'at's  run  away  from  school  can  git 

At  handy-like — and  let  'em  tackle  it ! 

Let  us  be  wrought  on,  of  a  truth,  to  feel 

Our  proneness  fer  to  hurt  more  than  we  heal, 

In  ministratin*  to  our  vain  delights — 

Fergittin'  even  insec's  has  their  rights  1" 

Truly,  after  reading  Riley 's  poems  through  we 
give  our  verdict  in  the  words  which  he  wrote  on  a 
fly-leaf  in  John  Boyle  O'Reilly's  Poems : 


56       THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"I  like  the  thrill  of  such  poems  as  these, — 

All  spirit  and  fervor  of  splendid  fact— s 
Pulse,  and  muscle,  and  arteries 

Of  living,  heroic  thought  and  act ! — 
Where  every  line  is  a  vein  of  red 

And  rapturous  blood  all  unconfmed 
As  it  leaps  from  a  heart  that  has  joyed  and  bled 

With  the  rights  and  the  wrongs  of  all  mankind." 

Riley  does  not  have  a  relatively  large  number  of 
poems  that  are  on  religious  subjects,  as  such;  and 
yet  one  will  often  come  upon  a  line  or  a  half-dozen 
lines  of  wondrously  rich  religious  value,  appar 
ently  dropped  incidentally  into  the  middle  of  some 
nature  or  narrative  poem  which  one  is  perusing,  as 
a  man  once  found  a  pearl  of  great  price  in  a  field 
which  he  was  cultivating  for  another  purpose. 

I  have  felt  that  it  would  be  worth  while  to  dig 
these  pearls  out  and  string  them  together — and  that 
is  what  I  have  attempted  to  do  in  the  following 
chapters.  I  have  found  so  much  of  help  and  inspira 
tion  and  joy  in  these  literary-religious  pearls  that  I 
have  collected  them  for  others.  I  have  sought  to 
gather  them  all  up.  Therefore,  everything  that 
Riley  says  about  God,  or  Christ,  or  sin  and  its  for 
giveness,  or  immortality,  or  patriotism  will  be  found 
in  the  following  chapters. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        57 

If  this  book  shall  enhance  Riley's  popularity  with 
religiously-inclined  folk,  and  religion's  popularity 
with  lovers  of  Riley,  I  shall  be  satisfied;  for,  as  he 
said  of  John  Clark  Ridpath,  so  we  say  of  him  : 

"Thus  broadly  based,  his  spacious  faith  and  love 
Enfolded  all  below  as  all  above — 
Nay,  ev'n  if  overmuch  he  loved  mankind, 
He  gave  his  love's  vast  largess  as  designed." 


CHAPTER  III 

"His  VOICE  MAKES  NATIVE  CHOICE  OF 
NATURE'S  HARMONY" 

THAT  is  what  James  Whitcomb  Riley  said  of 
Frank  L.  Stanton.  He  said  that  Stanton's 
song  was  as  "pure  as  a  joyous  prayer"  because  he 
sang  of  the  fields,  the  open  air,  the  orchard-bough, 
the  mocking-bird,  the  blossoms,  the  wildwood-nook, 
the  dewdrop,  "and  the  kiss  of  the  rose's  lip."  But 
when  Riley  spoke  of  Stanton  he  was  simply  de 
scribing  his  own  chief  theme.  Take  the  first  four 
stanzas  of  the  poem  and  see  how  accurately  they 
describe  most  of  Riley's  rhymes : 

"He  sings :  and  his  song  is  heard, 

Pure  as  a  joyous  prayer, 
Because  he  sings  of  the  simple  things — 

The  fields,  and  the  open  air, 
The  orchard-bough,  and  the  mocking-bird, 

And  the  blossoms  everywhere. 

"He  sings  of  a  wealth  we  hold 

In  common  ownership— 
The  wildwood  nook,  and  the  laugh  of  the  brook, 

And  the  dew-drop's  drip  and  drip, 
The  love  of  the  lily's  heart  of  gold 

And  the  kiss  of  the  rose's  lip. 

58 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        59 

"The  universal  heart 

Leans  listening  to  his  lay 
That  glints  and  gleams  with  the  glimmering  dreams 

Of  children  at  their  play — 
A  lay  as  rich  with  unconscious  art 

As  the  first  song-bird's  of  May. 

"Ours  every  rapturous  tone 

Of  every  song  of  glee, 
Because  his  voice  makes  native  choice 

Of  Nature's  harmony — 
So  that  his  singing  seems  our  own, 

And  ours  his  ecstasy." 

What  finer  description  of  Riley's  nature  poetry- 
could  be  written  than  that  it  is 

"A  lay  as  rich  with  unconscious  art 
As  the  first  song-bird's  of  May." 

He  is  truly  an  artist  here  of  the  highest  order,  albeit 
his  art  is  unconscious.  It  has  been  said  that  "the 
function  of  art  is  (1)  to  teach  us  to  see;  (2)  to 
teach  us  what  to  see ;  and  (3)  to  teach  us  to  see  more 
than  we  see/'  Measured  by  this  standard  the  poems 
of  James  Whitcomb  Riley  reveal  the  artistic  tem 
perament  in  all  his  references  to  the  natural  order. 

1.    HE  TEACHES  US  TO  SEE 

He  possessed  an  extraordinary  power  of  observa 
tion.  There  are  some  men  whose  eyes  are  of  no 
more  use  to  other  people  than  if  they  had  painted 


60        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

marbles  in  their  heads.  The  difference  between  a 
sharpshooter  and  the  ordinary  mass  of  soldiers  is 
largely  a  matter  of  keenness  of  observation.  No 
one  can  be  a  real  poet  unless  he  possesses  what 
Thomas  Carlyle  called  "the  seeing  eye."  It  is  this 
which  reveals  the  inner  harmony  of  things,  and 
makes  known  the  musical  idea  which  nature  has 
dressed  up  in  these  often  rough  habiliments.  To 
Carlyle's  requirement  we  might  add  that  the  poet 
must  possess  also  the  hearing  ear,  so  that  when  in 
meekness  and  love  he  lays  his  head  upon  the  mother- 
breast  of  nature  he  will  be  able  to  interpret  the 
musical  soft  beatings  of  her  bounteous  heart.  Riley 
possessed  both.  He  was  on  these  intimate  terms 
•with  nature.  In  "A  Poor  Man's  Wealth"  he  revels 
in  his  opulence  of  poverty  for 

"When  I  ride  not — with  you — I  walk 
In  Nature's  company,  and  talk 
With  one  who  will  not  slight  or  slur 
The  child  forever  dear  to  her — 
And  one  who  answers  back,  be  sure, 
With  smile  for  smile,  though  I  am  poor." 

In  our  florid  American  way  we  have  given  many 
nicknames  to  this  national  bard  of  ours;  but  one 
that  seems  to  fit  him  peculiarly  well  is  "The  Bobby 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        61 

Burns  of  America."  Burns  sang  his  sweetest  songs 
of  the  simple,  commonplace  things  that  he  daily  saw 
and  felt,  as  the  lark  of  his  native  Scotland  goes  sing 
ing  its  way  into  the  sky,  its  breast  still  wet  with  the 
dews  of  earth.  Even  so  is  Riley  able  to  see  the 
divine  nimbus  that  hangs  over  the  commonplace 
things  of  life.  Go  through  his  "Time  of  Clearer 
Twitterings"  and  note  the  glory  with  which  he  sur 
rounds  the  shellbark  hickory,  or  sycamore,  or  hazel 
thicket,  or  pennyroyal  or  mint !  Take  the  last  stanza 
and  read  it  through  and  you  feel  that  black-haws 
and  May-apples  are  as  fit  subjects  for  the  poet  as  is 
"the  nectar  that  Jupiter  sips,"  thus : 

"Ah !  will  any  minstrel  say, 
In  his  sweetest  roundelay, 
What  is  sweeter,  after  all, 
Than  black-haws,  in  early  Fall? 
Fruit  so  sweet  the  frost  first  sat, 
Dainty-toothed,  and  nibbled  at! 
And  will  any  poet  sing 
Of  a  lusher,  richer  thing 
Than  a  ripe  May-apple,  rolled 
Like  a  pulpy  lump  of  gold 
Under  thumb  and  finger-tips, 
And  poured  molten  through  the  lips? 
Go,  ye  bards  of  classic  themes, 
Pipe  your  songs  by  classic  streams ! 
I  would  twang  the  redbird's  wings 
In  the  thicket  while  he  sings  I" 


While  others  would  journey  to  romantic,  historic 
and  classic  haunts  to  find  some  poetic  nugget,  Riley 
dug  the  gold  of  poetry  out  of  the  soil  of  his  native 
Indiana.  Nothing  that  nature  made  was  considered 
unworthy  of  his  notice.  It  is  simply  astonishing 
how  many  of  the  common  things  of  life  he  men 
tions — and  how  frequently  he  refers  to  them.  I 
have  gone  through  his  Complete  Works  with  con 
siderable  care,  and  have  marked  and  counted  the 
natural  objects  that  he  mentions  in  his  poems.  I 
suppose  that  I  have  missed  some;  but  my  findings 
are  as  follows : 

He  mentions  by  name  thirty-five  different  flow 
ers.  The  rose  heads  the  list,  appearing  at  least 
ninety-five  times.  The  lily  comes  second,  forty- 
three  times.  Then  follow  the  pink,  the  water-lily, 
the  honeysuckle,  the  morning-glory,  the  hollyhock, 
the  primrose,  wild-rose,  buttercup,  tiger-lily,  peony, 
violet,  elder-blossom,  forget-me-not,  sweet-william, 
sweet-pea,  lilac,  marigold,  daisy,  sunflower,  aster, 
phlox,  pansy,  mignonette,  poppy,  daffodil,  etc.  He 
loves  especially  the  old  flowers.  He  makes  the 
farmer's  wife  who  has  grown  rich  and  moved  to 
town  express  herself  in  this  manner : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        63 

"What's  in  all  this  grand  life  and  high  situation, 
And  nary  pink  nor  hollyhawk  a-bloomin'  at  the  door?— 

Le's  go  a-visitin'  back  to  Griggsby's  Station — 
Back  where  we  ust  to  be  so  happy  and  so  porel" 

Once  when  he  was  confined  to  his  bed  by  sickness, 
his  friend,  Eugene  V.  Debs,  brought  him  a  bouquet 
of  roses.  Then  Riley  wrote  a  dialect  poem  about 
"Them  Flowers,"  the  closing  lines  of  which  are : 

"You  see,  it's  like  this,  what  his  weaknesses  is, — 

Them  flowers  makes  him  think  of  the  days 
Of  his  innocent  youth,  and  that  mother  o*  his, 

And  the  roses  that  she  us't  to  raise; — 
So  here,  all  alone  with  the  roses  you  send — 

Bein'  sick  and  all  trimbly  and  faint, — 
My  eyes  is — my  eyes  is — my  eyes  is — old  friend — 

Is  a-leakin' — I'm  blamed  ef  they  ain't!" 

Our  poet  mentions  by  name  forty-three  different 
kinds  of  trees.  The  apple  tree  heads  the  list,  being 
spoken  of  thirty-seven  times — twenty-six  times  the 
reference  is  general — five  times  the  Rambo  is  speci 
fied,  four  times  the  Pippin,  once  the  Prince  Harvest 
and  once  the  White  Peruvian.  The  elm  and  syca 
more  are  each  mentioned  fourteen  times ;  the  locust, 
maple  and  buckeye  each  thirteen  times ;  the  cherry, 
peach  and  oak  each  eleven  times ;  the  pear  and  hazel 


64        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

each  ten  times;  the  beech  nine  times;  we  find  the 
plum,  quince,  haw,  cedar,  dogwood,  mulberry,  but 
ternut,  walnut,  hickory,  poplar,  sassafras  and  so  on, 
at  least  forty-three  different  kinds  of  trees  em 
balmed  in  his  poems. 

Likewise  he  sees  the  grain,  the  common  grain  of 
our  fields — and  he  sings  of  it.  Corn  appears,  by 
my  count,  thirty-one  times  in  his  poetry;  wheat, 
thirteen  times ;  barley,  three  times ;  rye,  oats,  cotton 
and  popcorn  each  twice ;  sorghum,  sugar-cane,  buck 
wheat  and  sweet-corn  each  once.  The  wild  joy  he 
felt  in  living  close  to  these  grains  of  the  field  is  ex 
pressed  in  that  best  known  of  all  his  lyrics : 

"When  the  frost  is  on  the  punkin  and  the  fodder's  in  the 
shock," 

or  in  his  reminiscent  "Song  of  Yesterday" : 

"And,  cool  and  sweet, 

My  naked  feet 
Found  dewy  pathways  through  the  wheat ; 

And  out  again 

Where,  down  the  lane, 
The  dust  was  dimpled  with  the  rain." 

If  Moses  saw,  in  the  back  part  of  the  desert,  a 
bush  aflame  with  the  divine  significance,  so  Riley 
would  teach  us  to  see  the  Awful  Imminence  in  the 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET         65 

flaming  bloom  of  clover  or  goldenrod  or  ironweed. 
He  speaks  of  thirty-five  different  kinds  of  grass  and 
weeds.  Just  ordinary  unnamed  weeds  appear  seven 
teen  times.  Grass  is  mentioned  seventy-eight  times ; 
clover  and  vines,  each  twenty-eight ;  moss,  thirteen ; 
thistle  and  reed,  each  nine  times;  grape-vine,  eight; 
brier,  seven ;  pennyroyal  and  peppermint,  four  times 
each;  ivy  poison  vine,  calamus,  fern,  cattail,  rush, 
three  times  each;  dog- fennel,  jimson-weed,  rag 
weed,  horseradish,  dandelion,  ironweed  and  poke- 
berry,  twice  each;  ginseng,  wintergreen,  boneset, 
sheepsour,  nettle,  mullein,  dock-greens,  toadstool, 
pimpernel,  each  at  least  once.  It  was  difficult  for 
Riley  to  write  without  thinking  of  the  grasses  and 
the  blossoms :  thus  even  in  "Little  Girly-Girl"  her 
blue  eyes  and  glimmering  tresses  were 

"Like  glad  waters  running  over 
Shelving  shallows,  rimmed  with  clover," 

and  the  waving  grass  becomes  billows  of  beauty  and 
the  blossoms  but  the  flecks  of  foam  where  the  bil 
lows  break : 

"And  the  meadow's  grassy  billows 
Break  in  blossoms  round  the  willows 
Where  the  currents  curve  and  curl." 

Riley  teaches  us  to  see  nearly  all  of  our  common 


66        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

fruits  and  vegetables  as  being  not  unworthy  of 
poetic  treatment.  I  find  the  apple  (this  is  specif 
ically  the  fruit  in  addition  to  the  tree  referred  to 
above)  mentioned  at  least  thirty-five  times;  sixteen 
times  the  variety  is  not  designated;  eight  times  the 
Pippin  is  singled  out;  three  times  the  Prince  Har 
vest  ;  twice  the  Rambo ;  twice  the  Russet ;  once  each 
the  Winesap,  the  Siberian  Crab,  the  Rhode  Island 
Greening  and  the  Bellflower.  Sometimes  he  makes 
our  mouths  water  with  descriptions  of  the  delicious 
eating  qualities  of  the  apple,  and  sometimes,  as  in 
"A  Song  of  Long  Ago,"  he  asks  us  just  to 

"Let  the  eyes  of  fancy  turn 

Where  the  tumbled  Pippins  burn 

Like  embers  in  the  orchard's  lap  of  tangled  grass  and  fern." 

That  is  exactly  what  they  are  like,  though  we  never 
thought  of  it  until  he  told  us,  did  we  ? 

The  peach  (sometimes  the  "Clingstone,"  some 
times  the  "Freestone"  and  sometimes  just  the 
peach)  is  mentioned  eleven  times.  The  grape  comes 
in  seventeen  times ;  the  pear,  fifteen  times,  Bartlett 
pear  once  and  Sugar  pear  once;  all  sorts  of  fruits 
and  vegetables  are  glorified  by  our  poet:  cherries, 
plums,  berries,  potatoes,  tomatoes,  cucumbers, 
squash,  pumpkin,  gourd,  lettuce,  turnips,  rhubarb, 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        67 

parsnips,  beans,  cabbage,  beets,  watermelons — fif 
teen  times:  oh,  he  knows  all  about  "Wortermelon 
Time" : 

"Oh !  it's  in  the  sandy  soil  wortermelons  'does  the  best, 
And  it's  thare  they'll  lay  and  waller  in  the  sunshine  and  the 
dew 

Tel  they  wear  all  the  green  streaks  clean  off  of  theyr  breast; 
And  you  bet  I  ain't  a-findin'  any  fault  with  them;  air  you?" 

And  so  on  to  the  end :  he  can  tell  you  the  names  of 
the  different  varieties,  and  the  best  ones,  and  that 
you  must  not  plant  them  too  near  pumpkins,  and  so 
on:  there  is  nothing  about  watermelons  which  he 
does  not  know.  And  this  same  wonderful  power  of 
observation  and  meticulous  knowledge  is  seen  in  all 
the  things  of  nature  of  which  he  writes.  He  speaks 
in  "Old  Heck's  Idolatry"  of  the  pear ;  but  it  is  more 
than  that,  it  is  a 

"Tawny,  mellow  pear,  whose  golden  ore 
Fell  molten  on  the  tongue  and  oozed  away 
In  creamy  and  delicious  nothingness." 

Or  the  muskmelon  is  a 

"Netted  melon,  musky  as  the  breath 
Of  breezes  blown  from  the  Orient." 

Or  we  see  the  bloom  on  grape  or  plum  and  pass  it  by 
unseen  until  R?ley  shows  us : 


68        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"And  purple  clusterings  of  plum  and  grape, 
Blurred  with  a  dust  dissolving  at  the  touch 
Like  flakes  the  fairies  had  snowed  over  them." 

The  wild  fruits  he  knows  as  well  as  the  tame — 
and  probably  better.  They  all  enter  the  temple  of 
his  poetry  for  their  glorification :  hickory  nuts,  wal 
nuts,  beechnuts,  May-apples,  wild-strawberries, 
wild-plums,  pawpaws :  as  a  sample  of  the  sheer,  un 
adulterated  delight  that  he  found  in  nature,  as  well 
as  a  sample  of  wildly  imaginative  yet;  wholly  accu 
rate  description,  take  this  delicious  stanza  out  of 
"Up  and  Down  Old  Brandywine"  : 

"And  sich  pop-paws! — Lumps  o'  raw 
Gold  and  green, — jes'  oozy  th'ough 
With  ripe  yaller — like  you've  saw 
Custard-pie  with  no  crust  to : 
And  jes'  gorges  o'  wild  plums, 
Till  a  feller'd  suck  his  thumbs 
Clean  up  to  his  elbows!   My! — 
Me  some  more  er  lent  me  die!" 

The  barnyard  fowls  also  are  in  his  poetry,  and 
all  kinds  of  animals,  both  domestic  and  wild.  I  find 
the  chicken  mentioned  thirty-eight  times,  the  duck 
and  the  goose  each  five  times,  the  turkey  and  the 
guinea  each  four  times,  and  the  peafowl  once. 
Among  animals,  the  dog  heads  the  list,  appearing  at 
least  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  times;  and  then 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        69 

the  horse  sixty-six  times ;  the  bear  sixty  times ;  the 
cow  forty-two  times;  the  coon  twenty-two  times; 
the  wolf  twenty-one  times ;  the  hog  nineteen  times ; 
the  sheep  thirteen  times,  and  so  on:  the  cat,  the 
panther,  the  mule,  chipmunk,  deer,  otter,  muskrat, 
weasel,  squirrel,  fox,  possum,  rabbit — all  kinds  of 
animals.  And  someway  or  other  when  we  look  at 
these  animals  through  Riley's  eyes  they  no  longer 
seem  common  or  unclean.  Take  "The  Hoss"  : 

"The  hoss  he  is  a  splendud  beast; 

He  is  man's  friend,  as  heaven  desined, 
And,  search  the  world  from  west  to  east, 

No  honester  you'll  ever  find !" 

Or  take  the  dog :  how  much  of  human  nature  he 
expresses,  and  how  faithful  portrayal  of  human 
affection  for  a  dog  he  gives  us  in  "When  Old  Jack 
Died,"  the  first  stanza  of  which  is : 

"When  Old  Jack  died,  we  stayed  from  school  (they  said, 

At  home  we  needn't  go  that  day),  and  none 

Of  us  ate  any  breakfast — only  one, 

And  that  was  Papa — and  his  eyes  were  red 

When  he  came  round  where  we  were,  by  the  shed 

Where  Jack  was  lying,  half-way  in  the  sun 

And  half-way  in  the  shade.  When  we  begun 

To  cry  out  loud,  Pa  turned  and  dropped  his  head 


70        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

And  went  away;  and  Mamma,  she  went  back 
Into  the  kitchen.  Then,  for  a  long  while, 
All  to  ourselves,  like,  we  stood  there  and  cried. 
We  thought  so  many  good  things  of  Old  Jack, 
And  funny  things — although  we  didn't  smile — > 
We  couldn't  only  cry  when  Old  Jack  died." 

Our  beloved  Nature  Poet  had  such  wonderful 
powers  of  observation  that  he  seemed  to  hear  and 
see  everything.  All  his  faculties  were  keenly  alive. 
Nature  is  a  page  written  all  over  with  large  and 
small  letters.  It  is  interlined  and  cross-lined  and  has 
many  marginal  notes.  There  are  many  different 
readers  of  this  interesting  page.  Some  people  look 
at  it  and  see  only  the  headings  in  large  type.  Others 
read  much  of  the  story,  but  never  see  the  inter 
lining  or  cross-lining  or  marginal  notes.  Most  any 
body  will  see  a  horse,  but  only  the  few  will  note  that 

"The  hoss-fly  is  a  whettin'-up  his  forelegs  fer  biz, 
And  the  off-mare  is  a-switchin'  all  of  her  tale  they  is." 

Most  anybody  will  see  the  swan  that  floats  majes 
tically  upon  the  water,  but  only  the  close  observer 
will  note  what  the  bumblebees  and  water-bugs  are 
doing  as  does  Riley  in  "The  Brook-Song"  : 

"Sing  about  a  bumblebee 
That  tumbled  from  a  lily-bell  and  grumbled  mumblingly, 

Because  he  wet  the  film 

Of  his  wings,  and  had  to  swim, 
While  the  water-bugs  raced  round  and  laughed  at  him !" 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        71 

Most  anybody  pities  a  man  in  pain,  but  how  many 

"Pity  as  much  as  a  man  in  pain 

The  writhing  honey-bee  wet  with  rain," 

as  does  Riley  in  "Away"?  Really,  his  mind  was 
like  a  photographer's  sensitized  plate,  everything  in 
focus  was  caught  and  individualized  instantly. 

We  need  not  be  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  him 
mentioning  (according  to  my  count)  twenty-two 
different  insects.  The  honey-bee  holds  the  highest 
place,  appearing  seventy- four  times;  the  cricket, 
katydid  and  firefly  each  twenty-three  times;  the 
bumblebee  nineteen  times;  the  dragonfly  thirteen 
times;  the  locust  twelve  times;  the  butterfly  nine 
times,  and  so  on  down  the  list:  bug,  grasshopper, 
flea,  hornet,  glow-worm,  fly,  horse-fly,  mosquito, 
spider,  wasp,  yellow- jacket,  caterpillar,  June  bug. 
His  "Two  Sonnets  to  the  June-Bug,"  while  excruci 
atingly  funny,  is  sufficient  evidence  that  he  knew 
the  characteristics  of  these  little  creatures.  In  the 
first  sonnet  he  describes  the  "eternal  buzzin'  sere 
nade"  that  is  kept  up  by  the  June  bug,  and  in  the  sec 
ond  sonnet  declares : 

"And  I've  got  up  and  lit  the  lamp,  and  clum 
On  cheers  and  trunks  and  wash-stands  and  bureaus, 
And  all  such  dangerous  articles  as  those, 

And  biffed  at  you  with  brooms,  and  never  come 


72       THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

In  two  feet  of  you, — maybe  skeered  you  some, — 

But  what  does  that  amount  to  when  it  throws 

A  feller  out  o'  balance,  and  his  nose 
Gits  barked  ag'inst  the  mantel,  while  you  hum 
Fer  joy  around  the  room,  and  churn  your  head 

Ag'inst  the  ceilin',  and  draw  back  and  butt 
The  plasterin'  loose,  and  drop — behind  the  bed, 

Where  never  human-bein*  ever  putt 
Harm's  hand  on  you,  or  ever  truthful  said 

He'd  choke  your  dern  infernal  wizzen  shut!" 

He  is  acquainted  with  fish,  too,  is  Riley,  and 
counts  them  worthy  of  a  place  in  his  poems.  They 
are  found  there  at  least  forty  times — not  only  fish 
in  general,  but  in  particular  there  are  pike,  catfish, 
bass,  sunfish,  codfish,  sculpin,  minnow,  sucker, 
trout,  bream  and  perch.  He  even  calls  them  by  their 
familiar  names,  as  "Chub,"  "silver-side,"  "goggle- 
eye,"  and  so  forth. 

The  turtle,  the  terrapin,  the  snail,  the  fishing 
worm,  the  frog,  the  toad,  the  tree-toad,  the  snake — 
with  all  of  these  he  is  well  acquainted,  and  treats 
them  with  poetic  grace. 

But  it  is  when  he  gets  among  the  birds  that  he 
throws  off  all  restraint  and  wallows  in  bliss.  His 
powers  of  observation  are  as  keen  as  those  of  the 
birds  themselves.  In  "Knee-Deep  in  June,"  he  says : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        73 

"Ketch  a  shadder  down  below, 
And  look  up  to  find  the  crow — 
Er  a  hawk, — away  up  there, 
'Pearantly  froze  in  the  air ! — 

Hear  the  old  hen  squawk,  and  squat 

Over  ever'  chick  she's  got, 
Suddent-like  ! — and  she  knows  where 

That-air  hawk  is,  well  as  you ! — 

You  jes'  bet  your  life  she  do! — 
Eyes  a-glitterin'  like  glass, 
Waitin'  till  he  makes  a  passl" 

The  birds  see  quickly  everything  that  is  going  on 
around  them;  so  does  our  poet;  but  with  this  dif 
ference  :  their  vision  is  sharpened  by  fear,  his  vision 
is  sharpened  by  love.  He  sees  the  birds  and  he 
knows  them  by  name.  How  did  he  ever  get  to  know 
all  of  these  feathered  songsters,  to  know  their  plum 
age  and  their  habits  as  well  as  a  professional  ornith 
ologist?  He  did  not  know  that  somebody  would 
go  through  his  poems  to  count  how  many  birds  are 
there,  and  yet  they  all  come  flocking  into  his  rhymes 
as  naturally  as  they  come  into  our  orchards  and 
meadows  at  the  return  of  summer.  I  find  forty- 
seven  distinct  kinds  of  birds  in  his  poems.  The 
robin  is  mentioned  most  frequently,  thirty-five 
times ;  the  bluebird,  twenty-eight ;  the  dove,  twenty- 
one;  the  quail  (sometimes  called  "Old  Bob  White") 


74        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

and  the  whippoorwill  are  each  mentioned  eighteen 
times;  the  swallow  appears  twelve  times;  the  red- 
bird,  the  lark  and  the  humming-bird  each  ten  times ; 
the  nightingale,  hawk  and  thrush  each  nine  times; 
the  killdeer  and  the  bluejay  each  eight  times;  the 
bat  and  the  red-headed  woodpecker  (sometimes 
called  "sapsuck")  each  seven  times;  and  so  on 
through  the  list,  we  find  the  wren,  seagull,  eagle, 
blackbird,  catbird,  buzzard,  crane,  crow,  owl,  chick 
adee  (sometimes  called  the  "titmouse"  or  the  "tom 
tit"),  sparrow  (or  "chipbird"),  mocking  bird, 
canary,  bee-bird,  peewee,  bittern,  vulture,  pelican, 
kite,  kingfisher,  loon,  snowbird,  chewink,  snipe,  yel- 
lowbill,  flicker  (or  "yellow  hammer"),  yellow-bird, 
martin,  raven,  bobolink,  pigeon. 

Riley  does  not  only  name  the  birds ;  but  he  knows 
them.  As  an  example  of  his  meticulous  observation 
of  them  and  of  his  accurate  description  of  them, 
take  the  jay.  A  scientist  (in  Webster's  New  Inter 
national  Dictionary)  describes  it  as  follows : 

"The  jays  are  smaller  and  more  aboreal  than  the 
crows,  more  gracefully  formed,  more  highly  colored 
(blue  often  predominating),  and  many  species  have 
a  long  tail  and  large  erectile  crest.  They  have  roving 
habits,  harsh  voices,  pugnacious  dispositions,  and 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        75 

are  noted  for  destroying  the  nests,  eggs  and  young 
of  weaker  birds." 

Now  compare  with  that  scientific  description  Riley's 
description.  In  "Knee-Deep  in  June,"  he  merely 
touches  the  subject,  in  this  manner : 

"Mr.  Bluejay,  full  o'  sass, 

In  them  baseball  clothes  o'  his, 
Sportin'  round  the  orchard  jes* 
Like  he  owned  the  premises  1" 

But  he  draws  the  portrait  at  fuller  length  in  child 
dialect  in  "The  Jaybird,"  as  follows : 

"The  Jaybird  he's  my  favorite 

Of  all  the  birds  they  is ! 
I  think  he's  quite  a  stylish  sight 

In  that  blue  suit  of  his : 
An'  when  he  'lights  an'  shuts  his  wings, 

His  coat's  a  "cutaway" — 
I  guess  it's  only  when  he  sings 

.You'd  know  he  was  a  jay. 

"I  like  to  watch  him  when  he's  lit 

In  top  of  any  tree, 
'Cause  all  the  birds  git  wite  out  of  it 

When  he  'lights,  an'  they  see 
How  proud  he  act',  an'  swell  an'  spread 

His  chest  out  more  an'  more, 
An'  raise  the  feathers  on  his  head 

Like  it's  cut  pompadore  1" 


76        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Now,  this  is  the  question  that  obtrudes  itself  upon 
us:  How  could  any  man  see  so  well  all  things  in 
nature,  and  then  set  down  so  faithfully  what  he 
saw  ?  How  did  he  happen  to  notice,  as  in  "A  Brave 
Refrain,"  on  that  winter  morning  that 

"The  knuckled  twigs  are  gloved  with  frost"? 
Or  how  did  he  happen  to  notice  in  that  "Vision  of 
Summer"  the 

".   .   .   lush  glooms  of  the  thicket"? 
Or  how  did  he  happen  to  become  so  well  acquainted 
with  "The  Bat,"  as  to  tell  all  about  it  in  two  lines : 

"Thou  dread,  uncanny  thing, 

With  fuzzy  breast  and  leathern  wing"  ? 

What  was  it  so  sharpened  his  powers  of  observa 
tion  as  to  make  him  sensitive  to  colors  in  nature 

"From  rainbow  tints,  to  pure  white  snow," 
as  he  puts  it  in  "To  a  Boy  Whistling"  ?  What  was 
it  made  him  so  intimate  with  midsummer  as  to  hail 
it  as  "An  Old  Friend"  that  brings  its  harvest  store 
of  olden  joys,  "odorous  breaths  of  clover  hay,"  the 
doves,  and 

"Vast  overhanging  meadow-lands  of  rain, 

And  drowsy  dawns,  and  noons  when  golden  grain 

Nods  in  the  sun"? 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        77 

Why  in  his  appeal  to  "Babyhood"  did  he  yearn  to 

"Turn  to  the  brook  where  the  honeysuckle  tipping 
O'er  its  vase  of  perfume  spills  it  on  the  breeze, 

And  the  bee  and  humming-bird  in  ecstasy  are  sipping 
From  the  fairy  flagons  of  the  blooming  locust  trees"? 

How  had  he  come  to  observe  both  the  dragonfly  and 
blossoms  so  carefully  as  to  remark  casually  in  "Pan" 
the  dragonfly  was 

"Like  a  wind-born  blossom  blown  about  ?" 

Or  what  was  it  prompted  him  to  watch  a  primrose 
blossoming  out  so  that  when  he  wanted  to  tell  of 
"Armazindy's"  transformation  from  a  child  to  a 
woman,  he  likened  her  to  the  primrose : 

"Jevver  watch  a  primrose  'bout 
Minute  'fore  it  blossoms  out — 
Kind  o'  loosen-like,  and  blow 
Up  its  muscles,  don't  you  know, 
And,  all  suddent,  bu'st  and  bloom 
Out  life-size?" 

What  is  the  answer  to  all  these  questions  ?  There 
is  only  one  answer,  and  that  is  Riley's  true  love  of 
nature.  He  was  not  a  cold-blooded  specialist  peep 
ing  into  nature's  closets.  He  was  a  lover  who  lived 
close  to  nature's  heart,  who  looked  lovingly  and 
steadily  at  nature,  observing  the  individual  features 


78        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

of  bird  and  bee,  of  field  and  flower.  He  joyed  in 
seeing 

"Nothin*  but  green  woods  and  clear 
Skies  and  unwrit  poetry 
By  the  acre  1" 

as  he  put  it  in  "A  Pen-Pictur*  of  a  Cert' in  Friwolus 
Old  Man."  His  ear  detected  the  most  furtive 
sounds.  He  listened  even  when  he  could 

"Hear  nothin*  but  the  silunce." 

His  nose  detected  the  most  fugitive  odors — all  be 
cause  he  was  a  lover  of  nature.  Love  sharpens  the 
vision  and  the  hearing;  enlivens  the  feet;  steadies 
the  hand.  It  is  as  important  to  enjoy  as  it  is  to 
understand.  Riley  absorbed  as  well  as  investigated. 
His  poems  have  a  strong  flavor  of  the  rank,  rich 
soil  from  which  they  sprang. 

It  is  out  of  this  sympathetic  and  emotional  en 
joyment  of  nature  that  the  lyric  is  born.  The  one 
capable  of  it  feels  that  the 

"Unwrit  poetry  by  the  acre" 

is  all  his.  His  joy,  wonder,  worship,  surge  to  ex 
pression.  He  perceives  everywhere  a  harmony 
which  is  beauty,  and  he  bodies  it  forth  in  material 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        79 

form  through  the  medium  of  words,  fashioning  it 
according  to  his  own  mood.  This  pageantry  of 
color  and  form  and  sound  and  stir  that  he  notes  ev 
erywhere  in  earth  and  sky  and  air  floods  his  whole 
being  with  emotion  and  bids  him  sing  in  accordant 
rhythm,  and  so  he  sings  "A  Song" : 

"There  is  ever  a  song  somewhere,  my  dear ; 

There  is  ever  a  something  sings  alway; 
There's  the  song  of  the  lark  when  the  skies  are  clear, 

And  the  song  of  the  thrush  when  the  skies  are  gray. 
The  sunshine  showers  across  the  grain, 

And  the  bluebird  trills  in  the  orchard  tree; 
And  in  and  out,  when  the  eaves  drip  rain, 

The  swallows  are  twittering  ceaselessly. 

"There  is  ever  a  song  somewhere,  my  dear, 

Be  the  skies  above  or  dark  or  fair, 
There  is  ever  a  song  that  our  hearts  may  hear — 
There  is  ever  a  song  somewhere,  my  dear — 

There  is  ever  a  song  somewhere." 

This  is  the  very  spirit  of  poetry.  The  note  of  lark 
or  bluebird  or  swallow  gives  the  key.  The  song  that 
is  ever  somewhere  is  etherealized  into  rarer  music 
by  the  poet's  transfiguring  and  interpreting  tempera 
ment.  It  is  emotion  that  gives  birth  to  the  lyric 
poem.  One  April  day  in  1891,  Mr.  Riley  wrote 
"The  First  Bluebird."  Though  it  is  in  the  Hoosier 
dialect  and  pretends  to  be  a  "Benj.  F.  Johnson  of 


80        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Boone"  poem,  yet  it  is  just  what  all  lovers  of  nature 
have  felt  (and  been  unable  to  express)  after  a  win 
ter  of  "rain  and  snow!  and  rain  again."  Thus: 

"This  morning  I  was  'most  afeard 

To  wake  up — when,  I  jing! 
I  seen  the  sun  shine  out  and  heerd 

The  first  bluebird  of  Spring! — 
Mother  she'd  raised  the  winder  some ; — 
And  in  acrost  the  orchard  come, 

Soft  as  a'  angel's  wing, 
A  breezy,  treesy,  beesy  hum, 

Too  sweet  for  anything! 

"The  winter's   shroud   was   rent  apart — 

The  sun  bu'st  forth  in  glee, — 
And  when  that  bluebird  sung,  my  hart 

Hopped  out  o'  bed  with  me !" 

Go  through  "A  Hoosier  Calendar"  which  Riley 
wrote,  having  a  stanza  for  each  month,  and  see  the 
poet's  full  outpouring  of  himself.  He  does  not  care 
so  much  for  the  first  three  months,  but  in  April  he 
begins  to  get  "inspiration,"  and  then  May : 

"And  May!  It's  warmin'  jest  to  see 
The  crick  thawed  clear  ag*in  and  dancin* — ; 

'Pears-like  it's  tickled  'most  as  me 

A-prancin'  'crosst  it  with  my  pants  on  t 

And  then  to  hear  the  bluebird  whet 

His  old  song  up  and  lance  it  through  you, 

Clean  through  the  boy's  heart  beatin'  yet — 
Hallylooya!" 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        81 

But  it  is  by  no  means  only  in  "A  Hoosier  Cal 
endar"  that  we  find  the  full  outpouring  of  our 
bard's  self  in  lyric  poems.  He  revels  in  "The  Laugh 
ter  of  the  Rain" : 

"The  rain  sounds  like  a  laugh  to  me — 
A  low  laugh  poured  out  limpidly." 

He  was  profoundly  sensitive  to  the  beauty  of  the 
world.  He  loved  nature  for  her  own  sake,  and  be 
cause  she  ministered  to  his  love  of  what  was  fair  and 
good  to  look  upon.  With  perfect  abandon  he  sings 
"The  Brook-Song" : 

""Little  brook !     Little  brook ! 

You  have  such  a  happy  look — 

Such  a  very  merry  manner,  as  you  swerve  and  curve 
and  crook — 

As  your  ripples,  one  and  one, 

Reach  each  other's  hands  and  run 
Like  laughing  little  children  in  the  sun  1" 

To  my  mind,  the  best  example  of  Riley's  nature 
poetry  is  "The  South  Wind  and  the  Sun."  He  al 
ways  had  a  particular  affection  for  this  poem.  It  is 
longer  than  most  of  his  lyrics,  containing  twenty 
stanzas  of  eight  lines  each — and  it  should  all  be  read 
and  re-read  aloud  for  one  to  be  borne  along  on  the 
swelling  current  of  its  warm  and  colored  image,  and 


82        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

to  eddy  in  its  surgent,  glowing  words.  Take,  for 
example,  two  stanzas — the  first  one  and  another 
picked  at  randon  from  the  middle  of  the  poem ; 

"O  the  South  Wind  and  the  Sun  I 
How  each  loved  the  other  one — ; 

Full  of  fancy— full  of  folly- 
Full  of  jollity  and  fun ! 
How  they  romped  and  ran  about, 
Like  two  boys  when   school  is  out, 

With  glowing  face,  and  lisping  lip, 
Low  laugh,  and  lifted  shout! 

"Over  meadow-lands  they  tripped, 

Where  the  dandelions  dipped 
In  crimson  foam  of  clover-bloom, 

And  dripped  and  dripped  and  dripped ; 

And  they  clinched  the  bumble-stings, 

Gauming  honey  on  their  wings, 
And  bundling  them  in  lily-bells, 

With  maudlin  murmurings." 

The  month  of  June  always  set  Riley  going.  One 
of  his  earliest  poems  he  entitled  "June,"  in  which 
he  declared  that  he  nestled  like  a  drowsy  child  and 
dozed  in  June's 

".    .    .    downy  lap  of  clover-bloom ;" 
and  he  heard  the  lily  blow 

"A  bugle-call  of  fragrance  o'er  the  glade," 

Better  known  than  Lowell's  "What  is  so  rare  as  a 


83 


day  in  June?"  is  Riley's  "Knee-Deep  in  June."  It 
seems  as  though  everybody  knows  it — or  ought  to. 
It  closes  with  words  that  hold  forever,  as  an  aroma, 
the  evanescent  mood  of  the  nature-lover: 

"But  when  June  comes — Clear  my  th'oat 

With   wild   honey! — Rench  my  hair 
In  the  dew  1  and  hold  my  coat ! 

Whoop  out  loud  1  and  th'ow  my  hat  I — • 
June  wants  me,  and  I'm  to  spare! 
Spread  them  shadders  anywhere, 
I'll  git  down  and  waller  there, 
And  obleeged  to  you  at  that!" 

But  our  poet  uses  the  lyrical  form  also  as  the 
means  of  expression  for  his  ripest  wisdom  and  most 
burdened  thought.  Sometimes  it  is  a  welling  song 
and  sometimes  a  cry;  but  it  is  still  the  lyric.  He 
meets  and  masters  every  mood.  He  transmutes  his 
private  griefs  as  well  as  his  private  joys  into  the 
great  passionate  streams  of  universal  suffering  with 
in  reach  of  all  men.  Read  through  (and  weep  while 
you  read)  the  lines  he  wrote  "On  the  Death  of  Lit 
tle  Mahala  Ashcraft,"  the  opening  stanza  of  which 
is: 

"Tittle  Haly!     Little  Halyl'  cheeps  the  robin  in  the  tree; 
*Little  Haly  1'  sighs  the  clover,  'Little  Haly !'  moans  the  bee ; 
•Little   Haly!      Little   Haly!'   calls   the  killdeer   at   twilight; 
And  the  katydids  and  crickets  hollers  'Haly!'  all  the  night." 


84        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Riley  is  in  deep  sympathy  with  all  of  nature's 
moods,  and  he  feels  that  nature  is  in  sympathy  with 
him.  Therefore,  the  robin  and  the  bluebird  can 
sing  in  sadder  notes  when  he  is  sad,  and  though 
sometimes  the  rain  is  like  "low  laughter,"  yet  when 
he  weeps  it  is  like  "wild  gusts  of  tears."  Thus  when 
"Little  Marjorie,"  the  four-year-old  daughter  of  his 
friend,  William  C.  Bobbs,  died,  he  wrote  an  appeal 
ing  poem,  the  first  two  stanzas  of  which  are : 

"'Where  is  little  Marjorie?' 
There's  the  robin  in  the  tree, 
With  his  gallant  call  once  more 
From  the  boughs  above  the  door ! 
There's  the  bluebird's  note,  and  there 
Are  spring-voices  everywhere 
Calling,  calling  ceaselessly — 
'Where  is  little  Marjorie?' 

"And  her  old  playmate,  the  rain, 
Calling  at  the  window-pane 
In  soft  syllables  that  win 
Not  her  answer  from  within — • 
*Where  is  little  Marjorie?' 
Or  is  it  the  rain,  ah  me! 
Or  wild  gusts  of  tears  that  were 
Calling  us — not  calling  her !" 

We  get  the  same  feeling  of  our  brooding  Poet's 
mystic  sympathy  with  nature  that  not  only  enables 
him  to  understand  nature's  secrets,  but  also  makes 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        85 

nature  meet  his  every  mood.  We  are  thinking  just 
now  of  how  no  mood  is  denied  the  lyric.  "Our  Lit 
tle  Girl"  is  an  illustration  of  its  characteristic  note 
of  intense  personality.  Sorrow,  regret,  tears,  sob 
all  the  way  through  it.  The  Poet  transmutes  his 
private  griefs  into  the  great  passionate  universal 
yearning :  "We  want  our  little  girl  again" : 

"And  yet  the  way  before  us — • 

O  how  empty  now  and  drear  !— 
How  e'en  the  dews  of  roses 

Seem  as  dripping  tears  for  her ! 
And  the  song-birds  all  seem  crying, 

As  the  winds  cry  and  the  rain, 
All  sobbingly, — 'We  want — we  want 

Our  little  girl  again !' " 

2.    HE  TEACHES  US  WHAT  TO  SEE 

The  function  of  art  is  not  only  "to  teach  us  to 
see,"  but  also  "to  teach  us  what  to  see."  Measured 
by  this  standard,  James  Whitcomb  Riley's  nature 
poetry  is  not  found  wanting.  He  is  not  only  a  care 
ful  observer,  seeing  and  hearing  everything  because 
he  loves  nature;  but  he  possesses  powers  of  descrip 
tion  that  are  nothing  short  of  marvelous.  Who 
that  has  ever  done  that  most  delightful  work  of 
plowing  a  loamy  sod-field  on  a  spring  day  does  not 
thank  Riley  for  his  whimsical  descriptions  in  "Mis- 


86        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

ter  Hop-Toad."  We  followed  the  plow  across  the 
field ;  but  we  failed  to  see  what  we  might  have  seen. 
Take  the  first  stanza  as  a  sample : 

"Howdy,  Mister  Hop-Toad  I   Glad  to  see  you  out ! 
Bin  a  month  o'  Sund'ys  sense  I  seen  you  hereabout. 
Kind  o'  bin  a-layin'  in,  from  the  frost  and  snow? 
Good  to  see  you  out  ag'in,  it's  bin  so  long  ago  I 
Plows   like  slicin'  cheese,  and  sod's  loppin'  over  even ; 
Loam's  like  gingerbread,  and  clods's  softer'n  deceivin' — 
Mister  Hop-Toad,  honest-true — Spring-time — don't  you  love  it? 
You  old  rusty  rascal  you,  at  the  bottom  of  it!" 

That  is  just  right:  it  "plows  like  slicin'  cheese"; 
the  "loam  is  like  gingerbread."  Why,  of  course! 
We  have  seen  that  kind  of  plowing  many  a  time; 
but  we  never  had  the  fun  of  making  that  figure  of 
speech.  Every  farmer  should  thank  Riley  for  tak 
ing  the  drudgery  out  of  farm  work ;  for  calling  at 
tention  to  the  inconspicuous  beauties  which  the 
prosaic  toilsomeness  of  country  life  has  too  often 
failed  to  perceive.  His  "Thoughts  fer  the  Discur- 
aged  Farmer"  are  good  for  all  of  us,  no  matter  what 
our  occupation.  If  we  read  it  aloud  on  a  summer 
morning  we  are  bound  to  go  singing  to  our  work, 
whether  that  work  be  in  harvest  field  or  mill  or  mine 
or  store  or  office  or  bank.  What  glowing  imagery ! 
The  summer  wind  smelling  the  sweet  fragrance  of 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        87 

the  locust  blossoms;  the  bees  "swigging"  honey 
until  they  stutter  in  their  buzzing  or  stagger  in  their 
flying;  the  flicker  rolling  up  its  feathers  for  joyous 
work  as  a  farmer  rolls  up  his  sleeves !  Thank  you, 
Riley,  for  opening  our  eyes  to  see  the  wonders  of  a 
June  morning! 

"The  summer  winds  is  sniffin*  round  the  bloomin'  locus'  trees ; 
And  the  clover  in  the  pastur  is  a  big  day  fer  the  bees, 
And  they  been  a-swiggin'  honey,  above  board  and  on  the  sly, 
Tel  they  stutter  in  theyr  buzzin'  and  stagger  as  they  fly. 
The  flicker  on  the  fence-rail  'pears  to  jest  spit  on  his  wings 
And  roll  up  his  feathers,  by  the  sassy  way  he  sings ; 
And  the  hoss-fly  is  a-whettin'-up  his  forelegs  fer  biz, 
And  the  off -mare  is  a-switchin'  all  of  her  tale  they  is." 

And  so  he  goes  on  through  four  more  stanzas  open 
ing  before  our  wondering  vision  the  amazing  de 
lights  of  a  summer  morning,  ending  with  the  unfor 
gettable  lines : 

"Fer  the  world  is  full  of  roses,  and  the  roses  full  of  dew, 
And  the  dew  is  full  of  heavenly  love  that  drips  fer  me  and 
you." 

One  summer  when  Riley  was  only  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  he  was  visiting  friends  for  a  week  at 
an  old-fashioned  homestead  on  the  banks  of  Lick 
Creek.  One  day  he  went  out  and  spent  a  few  hours 
with  some  thrashers,  and  then  returned  across  fields 


88        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

to  the  homestead  three  miles  away.  At  one  point  he 
followed  what  he  called  "a  darling  pathway/'  over 
hung  with  willow  boughs.  He  forthwith  wrote 
twenty-six  stanzas  to  describe  the  delights  of  "A 
Country  Pathway."  Before  going  for  a  walk  in  the 
country  again,  read  this  graceful  poem  through,  and 
you  will  see  things  you  never  saw  before.  For  in 
stance,  when  you  come  to  a  meadow  you  will  see  the 
clover  stalks  nodding  in  the  breeze;  but  more  than 
that,  you  will  see  them  shake  rosy  fists  at  you  as 
though  they  resented  the  intrusion,  and,  protesting, 
they  will  threaten  to  drive  you  out,  as  though  the 
bumblebees  buzzing  around  the  clover  were  their 
watch-dogs.  He  is  following  the  Pathway : 

"In  pranks  of  hide-and-seek,  as  on  ahead 
I  see  it  running,  while  the  clover-stalks 

Shake  rosy  fists  at  me,  as  though  they  said — • 
'You  dog  our  country  walks 

"  'And  mutilate  us  with  your  walking-stick ! — • 
We  will  not  suffer  tamely  what  you  do, 

And  warn  you  at  your  peril, — for  we  will  sick 
Our  bumblebees  on  you !' " 

The  farmer  who  goes  out  to  husk  his  corn  on  an 
autumn  morning,  "When  the  frost  is  on  the  punkin 
and  the  fodder's  in  the  shock,"  knows  after  reading 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        89 

Riley  (though  he  may  not  have  known  it  before) 
that: 

".   .   .   the  air's  so  appetizin';  and  the  landscape  through  the 

haze 

Of  a  crisp  and  sunny  morning  of  the  airly  autumn  days 
Is  a  pictur'  that  no  painter  has  the  colorin'  to  mock — 
When  the  frost  is  on  the  punkin  and  the  fodder's  in  the  shock." 

The  Hoosier  bard  has  done  us  all  a  rare  service  in 
stimulating  our  eyes  to  see,  and  our  ears  to  hear,  in 
all  the  little  commonplaces  about  us,  those  endlessly 
changing  details  which  make  life  everywhere  so  un- 
fathomably,  immeasurably  wondrous.  In  his  "Life 
at  the  Lake"  we  behold  nature  as  truly  a  miracle, 
getting  that  inspiration  which  miracles  always 
breathe  into  the  spirit  of  mankind.  We  behold : 

"The  green  below  and  the  blue  above ! — 
The  waves  caressing  the  shores  they  love." 

We  hear 

"The  leaf-hid  locust  whet  his  wings," — 

and  we  are  glad  to  be  told  what  the  locust  is  doing 
when  he  makes  that  peculiar  noise;  we  never  knew 
before;  but  now  it  does  sound  like  the  farmer  whet 
ting  his  scythe.  Vividness  distinguishes  the  descrip 
tive  passages  of  all  of  Riley 's  nature  poetry.  He 
sets  his  scenes  in  vividly  real  background — so  faith- 


90        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

ful  to  actual  nature  that  the  local  sentiment  aroused 
as  you  read  his  poems  may  generally  be  accepted  as 
true.  Take  a  bit  of  description  out  of  the  center  of 
his  long  poem,  "Old  Hec's  Idolatry" — his  "Knights" 
suddenly  came 

"Upon  an  open  road  that  circled  round 
A  reedy  flat  and  sodden  tract  of  sedge, 
Moated   with   stagnant   water,   crusted   thick 
With  slimy  moss,  wherein  were  wriggling  things 
Entangled,  and  blind  bubbles  bulging  up 
And  bursting  where  from  middle  way  upshot 
A  tree-trunk,  with  its  gnarled  and  warty  hands 
As  tho'  upheld  to  clutch  at  gliding  snakes 
Or  nip  the  wet  wings  of  the  dragon-fly." 

Mr.  Riley's  greatest  nature  descriptions  have  to 
do  with  the  summer-time.  Even  in  the  winter  he 
can  make  us  see  summer.  If  you  doubt  this  read 
"The  Muskingum  Valley,"  a  poem  which  he  com 
posed  while  riding  up  the  Muskingum  Valley,  in 
Ohio,  all  day  in  an  old  hack  on  a  bitterly  cold  day  in 
March,  to  fill  a  lecture  engagement  at  McConnells- 
ville.  He  says :  "During  the  journey  the  cold  was  so 
trying  that  in  reaction  and  for  diversion  I  busied 
myself  picturing  the  summer-time  in  the  valley  and 
the  beauty  of  it."  He  succeeded  so  well  that,  read 
ing  it  anywhere,  anytime  of  year,  we  can  see  the 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        91 

blossoms  and  the  soft-sloping  hills  and  the  river  as 
restful  as  "an  old  fiddle-tune."  We  quote  the  first 
stanza  as  a  sample : 

"The  Muskingum  Valley ! — How  longin'  the  gaze 
A  feller  throws  back  on  its  long  summer  days, 
When  the  smiles  of  its  blossoms  and  my  smiles  wuz  one- 
And-the-same,  from  the  rise  to  the  set  of  the  sun : 
Wher'  the  hills  sloped  as  soft  as  the  dawn  down  to  noon, 
And  the  river  run  by  like  an  old  fiddle-tune, 
And  the  hours  glided  past  as  the  bubbles  'ud  glide, 
All  so  loaferin'-like,  'long  the  path  o'  the  tide." 

Some  of  us  never  really  saw  "A  Summer  Sun 
rise"  until  we  read*Riley's  beautiful  poem  with  that 
tide.  Take  a  few  lines  picked  at  random : 

"And  mountains,  peering  in  the  skies, 
Stand  ankle-deep  in  lakes  of  gold." 

What  a  vivid  description  suggesting  the  mountains 
standing  there  in  the  morning  sunlight,  "ankle-deep 
in  lakes  of  gold,"  and  "peering  in  the  skies."  We 
have  often  seen  mountains  do  just  that  thing,  but  we 
did  not  know  that  was  what  they  were  doing  until 
Riley  taught  us  to  see. 

"And  spangled  with  the  shine  and  shade, 

I  see  the  rivers  raveled  out 
In  strands  of  silver,  slowly  fade 
In  threads  of  light  along  the  glade 

Where  truant  roses  hide  and  pout." 


92        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

That  is  a  true  scene  in  God's  open  country  on  a 
summer  morning:  the  gleaming  rivers  across  the 
landscape  are  "raveled  out  in  strands  of  silver" ; 

"But  as  I  gaze,  the  city's  walls 
Are  keenly  smitten  with  a  gleam 

Of  pallid  splendor,  that  appalls 

The  fancy  as  the  ruin  falls 
In  ashen  embers  of  a  dream." 

Riley  always  excelled  in  his  descriptions  of  the 
coming  of  dusk.  In  his  "August,"  after  faithfully 
picturing  "a  day  of  torpor  in  the  sullen  heat  of 
Summer's  passion,"  he  represents  Day,  in  the  clos 
ing  lines,  as  going  to  sleep  in  the  arms  of  Night: 

"Till,  throbbing  on  and  on,  the  pulse  of  heat 
Increases — reaches — passes  fever's  height, 

And  Day  sinks  into  slumber,  cool  and  sweet, 
Within  the  arms  of  Night" 

We  have  all  gazed  in  rapture  at  the  first  star  shin 
ing  in  the  sky  at  even  time,  and  sometimes  in  child 
ish  inquisitiveness  wonder  how  it  got  there;  but  in 
his  "Dusk  Song"  our  poet  makes  us  see  it  as  vividly 
as  we  have  seen  boys  wading  in  a  river : 

"One  naked  star  has  waded  through 
The  purple  shallows  of  the  night." 

For  exalted  description  and  the  creation  of  the 
concomitant  of  emotional  tone,  I  know  nothing  that 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        93 

surpasses  his  account  of  "Dusk"  in  "Dead  Leaves." 
The  first  sentence  must  suffice  here : 

"The  frightened  herds  of  clouds  across  the  sky 
Trample  the  sunshine  down,  and  chase  the  day 
Into  the  dusky  lands  of  gray 

And  somber  twilight." 

Not  unlike  the  foregoing  are  some  lines  found  in 
"Thanksgiving  Day  at  Hunchley's,"  where  he  pic 
tures  mystic  voices  and  sounds  of  terror  bred  of 
nature's  laws : 

"I  have  leaned  upon  Niagara,  and  heard  the  wailing  tide 
Where  it  leaps  its  awful  chasm  in  unending  suicide : 

"I  have  heard  the  trampling  footsteps  of  the  roaring  hurricane 
As  he  lashed  his  tail  of  lightning,  and  tossed  his  shaggy  mane ; 
I  have  heard  the  cannonading  of  the  devastating  storm." 

Riley  possessed  to  a  more  marked  degree  than 
any  other  American  writer  the  art  of  describing 
natural  objects  and  presenting  ideas  in  symphonies 
and  harmonies  of  tone.  Almost  .any  one  of  his 
nature  poems  will  illustrate  this  fact.  Read  aloud, 
for  instance,  two  or  three  stanzas  from  "The 
Shower,"  and  see  how  they  impress  you : 

"The  landscape,  like  the  awed  face  of  a  child 
Grew  curiously  blurred ;  a  hush  of  death 

Fell  on  the  fields,  and  in  the  darkened  wild 
The  zephyr  held  its  breath. 


94        THE  FAITH  OF  TH£  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"The  sullen  day  grew  darker,  and  anon 
Dim  flashes  of  pent  anger  lit  the  sky; 

With  rumbling  wheels  of  wrath  came  rolling  on 
The  storm's  artillery. 

"The  cloud  above  put  on  its  blackest  frown, 
And  then,  as  with  a  vengeful  cry  of  pain, 

The  lightning  snatched  it,  ripped  and  flung  it  down 
In  raveled  shreds  of  rain." 

3.    HE  TEACHES  US  TO  SEE  MORE  THAN  WE  SEE 

It  is  a  further  function  of  art  to  "teach  us  to  sec 
more  than  we  see."  Riley  does  it.  In  his  hands  the 
natural  becomes  a  translucent  veil  through  which  the 
spiritual  pours  its  light  and  inspiration  into  the 
hearts  of  men.  The  last  poem  from  which  we  have 
quoted,  "The  Shower,"  was  one  of  his  earlier 
poems,  written  in  April,  1879.  It  put  him  in  the 
very  van  of  lyric  poets;  but  more  than  that,  the  final 
stanza  of  it  stamps  him  as  a  true  artist  in  the  sense 
of  the  highest  "function  of  art,"  which  we  are  now 
considering : 

"While  I,  transfigured  by  some  wondrous  art, 
Bowed  with  the  thirsty  lilies  to  the  sod, 

My  empty  soul  brimmed  over,  and  my  heart 
Drenched  with  the  love  of  God." 

Read  his  works  carefully  and  you  will  be  amazed 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        95 

at  how  often  he  likens  natural  objects  to  psycholog 
ical  phenomena,  as  in  "Dawn,  Noon  and  Dew  fall" : 

"Trompin'  home  acrost  the  fields :  Lightnin'-bugs  a-blinkin' 
In  the  wheat  like  sparks  o'  things  feller  keeps  a-thinkin' ;" 

or  as  in  "The  Speeding  of  the  King's  Spite" : 

"The  girl  had  grown,  in  the  mother's  care 
Like  a  bud  in  the   shine  and   shower 

That  drinks  of  the  wine  of  the  balmy  air 
Till  it  blooms  in  matchless  flower;" 

or  as  in  "Squire  Hawkins's  Story".: 

"Now  love's  as  cunnin'  a  little  thing 
As  a  hummin'-bird  upon  the  wing" ; 

or  as  in  "The  Funny  Little  Fellow,"  who  had  "a 
heart  as  mellow  as  an  apple  over-ripe,"  and 

"His  smile  was  like  the  glitter 

Of  the  sun  in  tropic  lands 
And  his  talk  a  sweeter  twitter 

Than  the  swallow  understands ;" 

or  as  when  he  wants  to  tell  of  the  mental  as  well  as 
physical  effect  that  the  touch  of  "Dear  Hands" 
has  upon  him,  he  declares  that  the  touches  of  her 
hands  are  light  as  "the  fall  of  velvet  snow-flakes," 


96        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

or  "the  down  of  the  peach,"  or  the  "flossy  fondlings 
of  the  thistle-wisp  caught  in  the  crinkle"  of  a  brown 
leaf,  or  as  "the  falling  of  the  dusk  at  night,"  or  as 
"the  dew  that  falls  so  softly  down  no  one  ever  knew 
the  touch  thereof  save  lovers" ;  or  as  in  "Limitations 
of  Genius,"  he  makes  us  see  the  agitated  whiteness 
of  a  pale  woman's  face  when  she  becomes  animated, 
as: 

"Her  pale  face  lit 
Like  winter  snow  with  sunrise  over  it"; 

or  as  when  he  wants  to  refer  to  that  strange  psy 
chological  phenomenon,  that  sudden  clustering  of  a 
crowd  of  boys  upon  the  slightest  excitement  in  any 
community, 

"Like  a  clot  of  bees  round  an  apple-core" ; 

or  as  in  "The  Harper"  where  he  desires  to  describe 
the  spiritual  effect  that  the  skilful  playing  of  a  harp 
has  upon  him,  he  likens  the  strings  to  slanting  rain 
and  the  player's  fingers  to  a  drift  of  faded  blossoms : 

"Like  a  drift  of  faded  blossoms 

Caught  in  a  slanting  rain, 
His  fingers  glimpsed  down  the  strings  of  his  harp 

In  a  tremulous  refrain"; 

and  he  knows  of  no  better  way  to  describe  the  ex 
quisite  music  than  to  call  it  "rainy  sweet"  : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        97 

"Patter  and  tinkle  and  drip  and  drip ! 

Ah!  but  the  chords  were  rainy  sweet! 
And  I  closed  my  eyes  and  I  bit  my  lip, 

As  he  played  there  in  the  street." 

He  closed  his  eyes  and  bit  his  lip  because  it  made 
him  think  of  the  little  bed  in  the  corner  of  the  gar 
ret  with  the  rafters  and  the  little  window  and 

"The  rain  above,  and  a  mother's  love, 
And  God's  companionship  1" 

or  as  in  "Armazindy"  he  compares  a  bad  woman  to 
a  snake :  oh,  how  his  description  of  her  stings  and 
burns — and  suits : 

"But  she  wuz  a  cunnin',  sly, 
Meek  and  lowly  sort  o*  lie, 
'At  men-folks  like  me  and  you 
B'lieves  jes'  'cause  we  ortn't  to. — 
Jes'  as  purty  as  a  snake, 
And  as  pisen — mercy  sake!" 

or  as  in  "To  My  Old  Friend,  William  Leachman," 
where  the  soul's  sorrow  is  compared  to  an  icy  win 
ter,  and  a  sympathizing  friend  to  the  sun  that  thaws 
it  out  and  brings  summer  to  the  soul : 

"And  the  clock,  like  ice  a-crackin',  clickt  the  icy  hours  in 

two — 
And  my  eyes'd  never  thawed  out  ef  it  hadn't  been  f er  you !" 


98        THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Truly,  Riley  was  so  much  of  an  artist  that  all 
nature  seemed  like  an  art-gallery  to  him,  full  of 
lovely  pictures.  He  became  the  People's  Poet  be 
cause  he  kept  close  to  nature  as  a  source  of  inspira 
tion  furnishing  him  an  infinite  variety  of  images  and 
fancies.  He  was  not  given  to  "preaching,"  and  yet 
he  beheld  nature  as  a  great  book  of  parables  which 
he  joyed  to  interpret  for  us.  He  beholds  "Autumn" 
as  a  harvester,  swart  and  hale,  faring  homeward 
with  slow  stride, 

"Weary  both  in  arm  and  limb, 
Yet  the  wholesome  heart  of  him 
Sheer  at  rest  and  satisfied." 

In  that  graceful  poem,  "A  Country  Pathway,"  he 
speaks  of  coming,  in  his  wanderings,  to  a  place 
where  the  perfect  day  bursts  into  bloom, 

"And  crowns  a  long,  declining  stretch  of  space, 
Where  King  Corn's  armies  lie  with  flags  unfurled, 

And  where  the  valley's  dint  in  Nature's  face 
Dimples  a  smiling  world." 

We  see  more  there  than  we  ordinarily  see,  not  only 
in  that  the  valley  is  a  dimple  in  nature's  face,  but 
more  in  that  the  stalks  of  waving  corn  are  the  un 
furled  banners  of  a  triumphant  King — a  King  tri 
umphant  over  Want.  This  very  thought  we  find 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET        99 

brought  out  more  plainly  in  three  lines  from  "A 
Child's  Home  Long  Ago" : 

"The  soldier  corn-stalks  on  their  battle-ground 
March  on  to  harvest  victories,  and  flaunt 
Their  banners  o'er  the  battlements  of  want." 

He  teaches  us  to  see  more  than  we  see — that's  the 
point.  Take  "Wortermelon  Time,"  for  instance. 
After  dilating  at  length  upon  watermelons,  and  con 
fessing  that  the  way  he  "hankers  after  wortermel- 
ons  is  a  sin,"  he  calls  attention  to  the  "more"  : 

"Oh,  they's  more  in  wortermelons  than  the  purty-colored  meat, 
And  the  overflowin'  sweetness  of  the  worter  squshed  betwixt 

The  up'ard  and  the  down'ard  motions  of  a  feller's  teeth, 
And  it's  the  taste  of  ripe  old  age  and  juicy  childhood  mixed." 

Our  Poet  is  always  seeking*  for  the  infinite — not 
so  much  the  infinite  in  contradistinction  to  the  finite, 
as  the  infinite  in  the  finite.  He  confers  spirituality 
and  permanence  on  the  fleeting  objects  of  sense.  He 
makes  this  world  the  visible  symbol  of  a  spiritual 
power.  He  invests  the  world  with  light.  Thus 
from  a  good-natured  contentment  with  the  kind  of 
weather  that  God  sorts  out  and  sends  him,  he  rea 
sons,  as  in  "Wet-Weather  Talk,"  to  a  comforting 
belief  in  the  wise  over-ruling  Providence  of  God  in 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  life;  for  though 


100      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"These-here  cy-clones  a-foolin'  round — 

And  back'ard  crops! — and  wind  and  rain! — 
And  yit  the  corn  that's  wallerd  down 
N        May  elbow  up  again  1" 

In  the  beautiful  sonnet  which  he  calls  "Sun  and 
Rain,"  he  makes  us  see  the  glimmering  mist  of 
blended  sunshine  and  rain  as  God's  smile;  the  lily 
bows  like  a  white  saint  in  prayer;  the  blossoms,  with 
divine  tenderness,  lift  their  wet  eyes  to  heaven  as 
does  the  Poet : 

"All  day  the  sun  and  rain  have  been  as  friends, 
Each  vying  with  the  other  which  shall  be 
Most  generous  in  dowering  earth  and  sea 

With  their  glad  wealth,  till  each,  as  it  descends, 

Is  mingled  with  the  other,  where  it  blends 
In  one  warm,  glimmering  mist  that  falls  on  me 
As  once  God's  smile  fell  over  Galilee. 

The  lily-cup,  filled  with  it,  droops  and  bends 
Like  some  white  saint  beside  a  sylvan  shrine 

In  silent  prayer ;  the  roses  at  my  feet, 
Baptized  with  it  as  with  a  crimson  wine, 

Gleam  radiant  in  grasses  grown  so  sweet, 
The  blossoms  lift,  with  tenderness  divine, 
Their  wet  eyes  heavenward  with  these  of  mine." 

After  Mr.  Riley  had  read  Oliver  Davie's  "Rev 
eries  and  Recollections  of  a  Naturalist"  (which 
Robert  G.  Ingersoll  called  "one  of  the  finest  tributes 
to  Nature  ever  penned"),  he  wrote  a  poem  which  he 
calls  "The  Naturalist."  While  it  purports  to  be  a 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       101 

description  of  Oliver  Davie,  it  in  very  truth  de 
scribes  the  service  that  our  Hoosier  bard  has  ren 
dered  us;  for  he  has  caused  us  to  go  forth  to  the 
forest  where  peace  and  love  breathe  prayer-like  in 
the  breeze  and  in  the  coo  of  doves ;  he  has  caused  us 
to  uncover  our  heads  and  hear  the  Master  speak  to 
us  in  the  spirit  of  the  wood ;  he  has  taught  us  to  "see 
more  than  we  see"  in  the  birds  and  the  grasses  and 
even  the  rain : 

"In  gentlest  worship  has  he  bowed 
To  Nature.     Rescued  from  the  crowd 
And  din  of  town  and  thoroughfare, 
He  turns  him  from  all  worldly  care 
Unto  the  sacred  fastness  of 
The  forests,  and  the  peace  and  love 
That  breathes  there  prayer-like  in  the  breeze 
And  coo  of  doves  in  dreamful  trees — 
Their  tops  in  laps  of  sunshine  laid 
Their  lower  bows  all  slaked  with  shade. 

"With  head  uncovered  has  he  stood, 
Hearing  the  Spirit  of  the  Wood — 
Hearing  aright  the  Master  speak 
In   trill   of    bird,    and    warbling    creek; 
In  lisp  of  reeds,  or  rainy  sigh 
Of  grasses  as  the  loon  darts  by — 
Hearing  aright  the  storm  and  lull, 
And  all  earth's  voices  wonderful, — • 
Even  this  hail  an  unknown  friend 
Lifts  will  he  hear  and  comprehend." 


102      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Mr.  Riley  was  a  great  admirer  of  John  Clark  Rid- 
path.  After  his  death  he  wrote  a  tribute  which  was 
read  at  his  memorial  service  in  which  he  gives  us 
a  cross-section  of  his  own  heart  and  mind: 

"The  skies,  the  stars,  the  mountains  and  the  sea, 
He  worshiped  as  their  high  divinity — 
Nor  did  his  reverent  spirit  find  one  thing 
On  earth  too  lowly  for  his  worshiping. 

"The  weed,  the  rose,  the  wildwood  or  the  plain, 
The    teeming    harvest,    or    the    blighted   grain, — 
All — all  were   fashioned  beautiful  and  good, 
As  the  soul  saw  and  the  senses  understood." 

That  is  fine!  It  all  depends  upon  the  soul  that 
sees  and  the  senses  that  understand.  His  "reverent 
spirit"  finds  nothing  "on  earth  too  lowly  for  his 
worshiping."  Truly,  a  reverent  spirit  is  a  posses 
sion  not  to  be  lightly  esteemed.  Reverence  is  one  of 
the  cardinal  virtues.  When  a  man  has  the  right 
kind  of  eyes  he  will  see  God  in  nature  as  Jesus  saw 
Him  in  the  flight  of  birds  and  in  the  flowers  of  the 
field.  He  will  see  Him  as  Wordsworth  saw  Him  in 
that  lovely  valley  of  the  Wye,  near  Tintern  Abbey; 
or,  as  once  when  he  saw  a  single  primrose  growing 
upon  a  rock,  and,  brooding  upon  it,  said :  "Thou  art 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       103 

become  to  me  the  court  of  Deity."  It  was  the  great 
scientist,  Louis  Agassiz,  who  said :  "Back  of  the  law 
written  in  the  rocks  is  the  hand  that  writes ;  back  of 
the  hand  is  a  mind — it  is  the  Mind  of  the  Living 
God."  God  is  present  everywhere.  He  made  the 
mountains  to  shoulder  up  the  sky.  He  clothes  the 
earth  with  vestments  of  green.  The  stars  are  but 
sparks  struck  out  on  the  anvil  of  His  eternal  pur 
pose,  and  His  power  keeps  them  burning  now  in  the 
illimitable  depths  of  space.  I  have  no  sympathy 
with  that  false  supernaturalism  that  finds  God  only 
in  signs  and  wonders.  He  is  as  much  in  the  buds  of 
spring,  arid  the  growing  corn,  and  the  ripening  har 
vest  to-day  as  He  was  in  the  giving  of  manna  to  the 
wilderness- wandering  Israelites  of  long  ago.  After 
all,  the  best  way  to  cultivate  the  sense  of  reverence 
and  awe  is  not  by  some  mighty  and  phenomenal 
contingency,  but  by  the  influence  of  the  common 
place.  I  f  we  approach  each  bush  with  reverence,  we 
may  detect  a  mystic,  burning  Presence.  Riley 
teaches  us  to  see  that  "all  works"  "worthy  of  Omnip 
otence"  are  worthy  of  our  reverence.  This  is  the 
whole  meaning  of  his  poem,  "The  Rest,"  the  closing 
stanza  of  which  contains  the  following  lines : 


104      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"It  was  enough,  thus  childishly  to  sense 
All  works — since  worthy  of  Omnipotence — 
As  worshipful.   Therefor,  as  any  child, 
He  knelt  in  tenderness  of  tears,  or  smiled 
His  gratefulness,  as  to  a  playmate  glad 
To  share  His  pleasures  with  a  poorer  lad." 

That  is  a  very  beautiful  thought:  that  we  should  be 
as  simple  and  sincere  in  our  gratitude  to  God  for  the 
wonderful  world  He  has  given  us  as  a  poor  lad 
would  be  to  a  playmate  who  had  shared  his  pleas 
ures  with  him.  No  wonder  that  Riley  concluded 
"The  All-Golden"  with  the  rapturous  outburst : 

"My  soul  soars  up  the  atmosphere 

And  sings  aloud  where  God  can  hear, 

And  all  my  being  leans  intent 

To   mark  His   smiling  wonderment. 

O  gracious  dream,  and  gracious  time, 

And  gracious  theme,  and  gracious  rhyme — 

When  buds  of  Spring  begin  to  blow 

In  blor.soms  that  we  used  to  know 

And  lure  us  back  along  the  ways 

Of  time's  all-golden  yesterdays !" 

Thank  you,  dear  Poet  of  the  People,  for  the 
things  you  have  taught  us.  Your  "song  makes  of 
Earth  a  realm  of  light  and  shadow,"  "vast  and 
grand  with  splendor  of  the  morn,"  and  your  voice 
"makes  melodious  all  things  below,"  as  you  once 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       105 

said  of  your  friend,  Benj.  S.  Parker.  So  do  we 
take  your  words  and  make  them  our  own,  address 
ing  them  back  to  you  with  utter  sincerity : 

"Thy  rapt  song  makes  of  Earth  a  realm  of  light 
And  shadow  mystical  as  some  dreamland 
Arched  with  un fathomed  azure — vast  and  grand 

With  splendor  of  the  morn;  or  dazzling  bright 

With  orient  noon ;  or  strewn  with  stars  of  night 
Thick  as  the  daisies  blown  in  grasses  fanned 
By  odorous   midsummer  breezes   and 

Showered  over  by  all  bird-songs  exquisite. 

This  is  thy  voice's  beatific  art — 
To  make  melodious  all  things  below, 

Calling  through  them,  from  far,  diviner  space, 

Thy  clearer  hail  to  us. — The  faltering  heart 
Thou  cheerest ;  and  thy  fellow  mortal  so 

Fares  onward  under  Heaven  with  lifted  face." 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD  IN  RILEY'S  RHYMES 

EVERY  man  has  some  God.  It  would  be  just 
as  reasonable  to  talk  about  vegetation  growing 
independently  of  the  light  of  the  sun  as  to  talk  about 
man's  existence  independent  of  a  god.  His  idea 
about  God  is  fundamental.  As  the  light  of  the  sun 
gives  color  to  everything;  to  the  modest  violet 
blooming  alone  in  the  fence-corner,  no  less  than  to 
the  mighty  oak  that  fronts  the  storm,  so  man's  con 
ception  of  God  colors  every  detail  of  his  life,  not 
only  his  thinking,  but  also  his  doing.  Deed  is  only 
the  practical  expression  of  creed.  If  you  know  what 
a  man's  idea  of  God  is,  you  can  construct  the  main 
outlines  of  his  whole  belief;  for  in  that  idea  is 
bound  up  what  he  thinks  of  right  and  wrong,  of 
sin  and  salvation,  of  time  and  eternity,  of  his  rela 
tion  to  his  fellow  men  and  of  his  relation  to  the 
Great  Unseen. 

If  we  go  through  James  Whitcomb  Riley's  poetry 
to  discover  what  he  believed  concerning  God,  we 
shall  be  as  refreshed  in  spirit  as  though  bland  but 
bracing  breezes  had  blown  upon  us  from  the  hills  of 

106 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       107 

Heaven;  we  shall  be  as  comforted  as  a  fearful  child 
is  comforted  when  its  mother  croons  to  it  and  cud 
dles  it  in  the  dark  and  silent  night.  We  can  group 
practically  all  he  says  about  God  under  four  head 
ings:  (1)  An  unquestioning  belief  in  the  existence 
of  a  personal  and  imminent  God;  (2)  a  firm  faith 
in  an  overruling  Divine  Providence;  (3)  confidence 
that  God  hears  and  answers  prayer;  (4)  the  fore 
going  rest  upon  the  conviction  that  God  is  good  and 
merciful. 

We  find  in  Riley  no  trace  of  that  sneering,  cynical 
attitude  toward  religious  questions  which  was  only 
too  common  among  many  of  his  compatriots.  He 
exercises  what  Professor  James  calls  "the  will  to 
believe."  Plaintively  he  sings  "We  Must  Believe," 
each  stanza  of  which  poem  ends  with  the  fervent 
words : 

"Lord,  I  believe : 

Help  Thou  mine  unbelief  1" 

To  one  who  is  able  to  think  the  question  through 
the  first  reason  for  believing  in  the  existence  of  God 
is  the  fact  that  we  are  able  to  understand  something 
of  the  laws  that  obtain  in  the  universe.  For  just 
as  we  conclude  that  a  musical  score  that  can  be  un 
derstood  by  a  rational  mind  must  have  been  pro- 


108      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

duced  by  a  rational  mind,  even  so  we  conclude  that 
if  a  rational  mind  is  able  to  interpret  this  great  piece 
of  cosmic  music  which  we  call  the  universe,  it  must 
be  the  product  of  the  rational  mind  which  we  call 
God.  The  modern  atheist,  in  offering  a  mechanical 
explanation  of  the  universe,  spells  nature  with  a 
capital  "N"  and  science  with  a  capital  "S."  His 
"Nature"  is  the  rival  of  God,  and  his  "Science" 
leaves  the  surface  of  things,  where  it  belongs,  and 
goes  beyond  the  phenomena,  and  prates  of  the  infin 
ities  and  the  eternities  and  "the  iron  chain  of  neces 
sity." 

In  two  stanzas  of  his  long  and  wholesome  poem, 
"The  Rubaiyat  of  Doc  Sifers,"  Mr.  Riley  introduces 
us  in  his  quaint  Hoosier  style  to  such  characters  as 
these  in  this  fashion : 

"And  onc't — when  gineral  loafin'-place  wuz  old  Shoe-Shop — 

and  all 

The  gang'ud  git  in  there  and  brace  their  backs  ag'inst  the  wall 
And  settle  questions  that  had  went  onsettled  long  enough, — 
Like  'wuz  no  Heav'n — ner  no  torment' — jes*  talkin'  awful 

rough! 

"There  was  Sloke  Haines  and  old  Ike  Knight  and  Coonrod 

Simmes — all  three 

Ag'inst  the  Bible  and  the  Light,  and  scoutin'  Deity. 
'Science,'  says  Ike,  'it  DlMonstrates — it  takes  nobody's  word — 
Scriptur*  er  not, — it  'vestigates  ef  sich  things  could  occurred !'  " 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       109 

Now,  in  Mr.  Riley  we  find  no  trace  of  that  incredul 
ity  and  spirit  of  skeptical  mockery  which  scintillates 
endless  epigrams  and  facetious  flippancies,  counting 
nothing  too  sacred  for  its  acid  jest.  But  just  the 
same,  he  is  able  to  wield  the  sharp  sword  of  sarcasm 
with  wonderful  skill  when  the  notion  strikes  him; 
and  we  can  not  but  clap  our  hands  in  admiration  at 
the  fine  answer  he  causes  Doc  Sifers  to  make  to  the 
cock-sure  dogmatism  of  the  shallow-pated  shoe-shop 
loafers : 

"Well,  Doc  he  heerd  this, — he'd  drapped  in  a  minute,  fer  to  git 

A  tore-off  heel  pegged  on  ag'in, — and  as  he  stood  on  it 

And   stomped   and   grinned,   he   says  to   Ike,   'I   s'pose  now, 

purty  soon 
Some  lightin'-bug,  indignant-like,  '11  'vestigate  the  moon! 

"  'No,  Ike,'  says  Doc,  'this  world  hain't  saw  no  brains  like 

yourn  and  mine 

With  sense  enough  to  grasp  a  law  'at  takes  a  brain  divine. — 
I've  bared  the  thoughts  of  brains  in  doubt,  and  felt  their  finest 

pulse, — 
And  mortal  brains  jes'  won't  turn  out  omnipotent  results.'" 

This  is  sound  philosophy.  The  mind  is  awe- 
stricken  as  the  facts  of  science  flash  upon  it.  In 
whatever  direction  we  look  we  see  unmistakable  evi 
dences  of  wisdom,  power,  benevolence  and  design. 
Since  the  universe  bears  the  impress  of  mind,  a 


110      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

mind  is  the  only  adequate  cause  of  the  universe. 
Only  a  mind  great  enough  to  cause  all  other  exist 
ence  can  be  self-existent.  It  requires  God  to  "turn 
out  omnipotent  results." 

When  Mr.  Riley's  friend,  John  Boyle  O'Reilly, 
died,  our  poet  declared : 

w'Tis  promotion  that  has  come        * 
Thus  upon  him.    Stricken  dumb 
Be  your  meanings  dolorous ! 
God  knows  what  He  does." 

Let  us  hold  fast  to  that  profound  doctrine,  so  simply 
expressed :  "God  knows  what  He  does !"  The  hid 
den  power  carrying  on  the  world  is  purposeful  and 
intelligent.  As  the  scheduled  running  of  a  locomo 
tive  can  be  accounted  for  only  in  the  acknowledg 
ment  that  an  engineer  is  on  board,  so  to  talk  sen 
sibly  about  the  dynamism  of  the  world  we  must  lift 
it  to  the  plane  of  volitional  causation.  In  his  poem, 
"Good-by  er  Howdy-do,"  Riley  expresses  it  exactly : 

"Some    One's    runnin'    this    concern 
That's  got  nothin'  else  to  learn; 
Ef  He's  willin',  we'll  pull  through — 
Say  good-by  er  howdy-do !" 

Anselm  once  said :  "The  idea  of  God  in  the  mind 
of  man  is  the  one  unanswerable  evidence  of  the  ex- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       111 

istence  of  God."  This  is  up-to-date  reasoning;  for 
in  a  world  of  reality  every  natural  appetite,  desire 
or  power  has  its  counterpart.  There  is  air  for  the 
lungs,  light  for  the  eye,  food  for  the  stomach,  truth 
for  the  reason,  love  to  answer  those  who  love.  Now, 
man  is  constitutionally  religious.  The  universal 
idea  of  the  existence  of  God  is  intuitive;  it  inheres 
in  the  very  nature  of  man.  Shall  we  say  that 
nature,  which  never  deceives  man  in  aught  else, 
plays  fast  and  loose  with  him  in  this  respect?  But 
if  the  argument  is  worth  anything  it  points  not  only 
to  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being,  but  to  a  good 
God  who  is  worthy  of  our  trust,  love  and  worship. 
In  a  tender  poem,  fittingly  called  "The  Enduring," 
Riley  describes  the  old  shoe-shop  at  Greenfield,  In 
diana,  which  he  frequented  when  a  boy.  He  con 
cludes  each  one  of  the  three  verses  with  the  legend 
that  was  cut  in  antique  lines  over  the  portal  of  the 
shoe-shop : 

"Wouldst  have  a  friend? — Wouldst  know  what  friend  is  best? 
Have  God  thy  friend :  He  passeth  all  the  rest" 

Our  gentle  poet  tells  us  that  as  he  reads  the  words 
over  again,  his  old  eyes  make  the  meaning  clearer 
than  did  the  eyes  of  youth.  Man's  religious  nature 


112      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

is  the  crown  of  his  being,  and  can  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  God  as  its  counterpart.  As  the  eye 
was  made  for  light  and  the  ear  for  sound,  so  man 
was  made  for  God.  The  sentiment  with  which  the 
poem  "Unless"  closes  is  true : 

"O  souls  that  thirst,  and  hearts  that  fast, 
And  natures  faint  with  famishing, 
God  lift  and  lead  and  safely  bring 

You  to  your  own  at  last!" 

God  lifts  and  leads  and  satisfies!  This  spiritual  ex 
perience  is  the  most  practical  evidence  of  God.  Ex 
perience  is  the  final  test.  I  have  made  the  test.  I 
have  had  the  spiritual  experience  which  convinces 
me  of  the  existence  of  God.  I  do  not  stand  alone; 
I  am  in  company  with  the  truest,  sanest  and  best 
among  the  sons  of  men;  and  I  am  in  line  \vith  the 
best  philosophy  of  the  time.  Pragmatism,  of  which 
we  hear  so  much,  only  means :  Does  it  work  ?  Is  it 
worth  while?  Of  what  value  is  it?  And  history 
has  proved  that  to  surrender  to  the  great  and  good 
God,  to  come  into  communion  and  fellowship  with 
Him,  makes  for  the  holiest  character,  and  inspires 
the  noblest  life.  By  this  method,  cowards  have  be 
come  courageous;  libertines  have  become  chaste; 
drunkards  have  become  sober;  liars  have  become 


truthful;  doubters  have  become  disciples;  selfish 
lives  have  become  generous  and  Christ-like.  Have 
you  doubts  about  the  existence  of  God?  Then  go 
to  Him  through  Jesus  Christ,  by  faith  link  your  life 
with  His,  and  you  will  be  able  to  say  with  Riley, 
who,  after  a  most  exquisite  description  of  "The 
Shower,"  in  lines  that  might  have  occurred  in  the 
rhapsodies  of  Isaiah,  says : 

"While  I,  transfigured  by  some  wondrous  art, 
Bowed  with  the  thirsty  lilies  to  the  sod, 

My   empty   soul   brimmed    over,    and    my   heart 
Drenched  with  the  love  of  God." 

That  "God  is  not  disquieted"  is  a  great  truth  that 
gives  sanity  to  the  universe  and  peace  to  the  mind. 
It  is  the  motif  of  "The  Legend  Glorified" : 

"Though  awful  tempests  thunder  overhead, 
I  deem  that  God  is  not  disquieted, — 
The  faith  that  trembles  somewhat  yet  is  sure 
Through  storm  and  darkness  of  a  way  secure. 

"Bleak  winters,  when  the  naked  spirit  hears 

The  break  of  hearts,  through  stinging  sleet  of  tears, 

I  deem  that  God  is  not  disquieted ; 

Against  all  stresses  am  I  clothed  and   fed. 

"Nay,  even  with  fixed  eyes  and  broken  breath, 
My  feet  dip  down  into  the  tides  of  death, 
Nor  any  friend  be  left,  nor  prayer  be  said, 
I  deem  that  God  is  not  disquieted." 


114      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Is  that  not  a  good  commentary  on  the  Scripture: 
"Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift  is  from 
above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father  of  lights, 
with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of 
turning."  Upon  the  changelessness  of  God  rests  our 
entire  confidence  in  Him,  and  our  reliance  upon  His 
proffered  mercies  and  His  gracious  plans.  He  "is 
not  disquieted."  He  is  not  a  God  of  caprice.  He 
can  manage  His  own  work.  Heaven  is  not  thrown 
into  a  panic  because  of  some  temporary  turmoil  on 
earth. 

God  is  present  with  us  in  nature.  That  is  a  doc 
trine  of  Scripture.  The  Book  of  Psalms  is  a  veri 
table  handbook  of  poetic  description.  To  Jesus,  all 
nature,  birds  and  flowers  and  fields,  spoke  of  the 
love  and  care  of  God;  So,  also,  does  our  dear  Riley 
teach  us,  in  his  poem  to  Oliver  Davie,  "The  Nat 
uralist,"  that  if  we  have  hearing  properly  attuned  we 
shall  "hear  aright  the  Master  speak"  in  all  the  sweet 

sounds  of  nature  : 
/ 

"In  gentlest  worship  has  he  bowed 
To  Nature.    Rescued  from  the  crowd 
And  din  of  town  and  thoroughfare, 
He  turns  him  from  all  worldly  care 
Unto  the  sacred  fastness  of 
The  forests,  and  the  peace  and  love 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       115 

That  breathes  there  prayer-like  in  the  breeze 
And  coo  of  doves  in  dreamful  trees — 
Their  tops  in  laps  of  sunshine  laid, 
Their  lower  boughs  all  slaked  with  shade. 

"With  head  uncovered  has  he  stood, 
Hearing  the  Spirit  of  the  Wood — 
Hearing  aright  the  Master  speak 
In  trill  of  bird,  and  warbling  creek; 
In  lisp  of  reeds,  or  rainy  sigh 
Of  grasses  as  the  loon  darts  by — 
Hearing  aright  the  storm  and  lull, 
And  all  earth's  voices  wonderful, — 
Even  this  hail  an  unknown  friend 
Lifts  will  he  hear  and  comprehend." 

But  not  only  is  God  with  us  in  nature:  He  is 
with  us  in  history.  One  can  not  read  Riley's 
"America's  Thanksgiving  (1900)"  without  being 
hushed  with  a  reverential  awe.  If  the  ancient  He 
brews  built  their  temple  with  a  consciousness  of  the 
divine  overshadowing  all  their  work  and  lending  it 
unspeakable  solemnity,  no  less  truly  is  one  who 
reads  this  "Thanksgiving"  poem  conscious  of  the 
overshadowing  presence  of  the  great  God  in  all  our 
nation's  life;  so  that  with  clearer  sight  we  see  our 
boundless  debt  to  God  who  causes  wrong  to  grow 
into  right,  and  who  transforms  the  clanging  fray  of 
battle  discord  "into  a  pastoral  song  of  peace  and 
rest." 


116      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"So,  let  us  thank  Thee,  with  all  self  aside, 
Nor  any  lingering  taint  of  mortal  pride; 

As  here  to  Thee  we  dare 

Uplift  our  faltering  prayer, 
Lend  it  some  fervor  of  the  glorified." 

In  1620  a  Dutch  trading  ship  sailed  up  the  James 
River,  with  its  cargo  of  human  slaves.  The  ini 
quitous  business  grew  on  these  shores  until  it  be 
came  a  hideous  nightmare  to  all  right-thinking  peo 
ple.  Yet  its  defenders  drove  their  arguments  home 
with  logic  and  clinched  them  with  Scripture.  Some 
of  its  horrors  were  "Told  by  the  Noted  Traveler" 
in  Mr.  Riley's  "Child- World."  After  this  tale  had 
been  told,  one  of  those  who  had  listened  to  it  with 
flushed  face,  yearned  to  know 

"That  all  unwritten  sequence  that  the  Lord 
Of  Righteousness  must  write  with  flame  and  sword, 
Some  awful  session  of  His  patient  thought. 
Just  then  it  was,  his  good  old  mother  caught 
His  blazing  eye — so  that  its  fire  became 
But  as  an  ember — though  it  burned  the  same. 
It  seemed  to  her,  she  said,  that  she  had  heard 
It  was  the  Heavenly  Parent  never  erred, 
And  not  the  earthly  one  that  had  such  grace ; 
'Therefore,  my  son,'  she  said,  with  lifted  face 
And  eyes,  'let  no  one  dare  anticipate 
The  Lord's  intent.    While  He  waits,  we  will  wait* " 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       117 

And  the  business  grew  until  it  was  overthrown  by 
the  shock  of  the  sword.  Yet  through  it  all  God 
wrought  a  larger  human  freedom,  and  placed  upon 
the  white  man's  heart  a  new  sense  of  responsibility 
for  the  salvation  of  the  dark  continent.  It  is  always 
so.  The  human  will  blocks  God's  plans  sometimes. 
But  He  can  afford  to  wait.  He  will  triumph  in  the 
end.  He  is  always  keeping  watch  over  His  own. 
He  sways  the  future.  True  statesmanship  through 
the  ages  has  been  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  abil 
ity  on  the  part  of  some  men  to  discern  the  direction 
in  which  God  is  going,  and  to  move  things  out  of 
the  way  for  Him. 

Riley  ever  sees  his  entire  dependence  on  Omnipo 
tence  for  every  gift,  and  feels  that  God  does  all 
things  transcendently  well.  This  is  the  secret  of  his 
good-natured  contentment  with  whatever  Provi 
dence  does.  I  like  his  "Philosophy"  in  which  he  ad 
ministers  this  gentle  rebuke  to  the  superficial  egotist : 

"The  signs  is  bad  when  folks  commence 
A-findin'  fault  with  Providence, 
And  balkin'  'cause  the  earth  don't  shake 
At  ev'ry  prancin'  step  they  take." 

The  same  doctrine  of  the  unerring  overruling 
Providence  of  a  good  God  who  will  bring  victory 


118      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

out  of  defeat  and  success  out  of  failure,  is  unmis 
takably  set  forth  in  the  dialect  poem  "Wet- Weather 
Talk,"  which  is  so  good  and  expresses  this  splendid 
philosophy  of  Riley's  in  such  a  striking  way  that  I 
shall  give  it  all: 

"It  hain't  no  use  to  grumble  and  complane; 

It's  jest  as  cheap  and  easy  to  rejoice. — 
When  God  sorts  out  the  weather  and  sends  rain, 

W'y>  rain's  my  choice. 

"Men  ginerly,  to  all  intents — 

Although,  they're  apt  to  grumble  some — 
Puts  most  theyr  trust  in  Providence, 
And  takes  things  as  they  come — 
That  is,  the  commonality 
Of  men  that's  lived  as  long  as  me 
Has  watched  the  world  enough  to  learn 
They're  not  the  boss  of  this  concern. 

"With  some,  of  course,  it's  different — 

I've  saw  young  men   that  knowed   it  all, 
And  didn't  like  the  way  things  went 
On  this  terrestchul  ball; — 
But  all  the  same,  the  rain,  some  way 
Rained  jest  as  hard  on  picnic  day; 
Er,  when  they  railly  wanted  it 
It  mayby  wouldn't  rain  a  bit  1 

"In  this  existence,  dry  and  wet 

Will  overtake  the  best  of  men — 
Some  little  skift  o'  clouds'll  shet 

The  sun  off  now  and  then. — 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       119 

And  mayby,  whilse  you're  wondern  who 
You've  fool-like  lent  your  umbrell'  to, 
And  want  it — out'll  pop  the  sun, 
And  you'll  be  glad  you  hain't  got  none  I 

"It  aggervates  the  farmers,  too — 

They's   too  much  wet,   er  too  much   sun, 
Er  work,  er  waitin'  round  to  do 
Before  the  plowin'  's  done ; 
And  mayby,  like  as  not,  the  wheat, 
Jest  as  it's  lookin'  hard  to  beat, 
Will    ketch    the    storm — and    jest    about 
The  time  the  corn's  a-jintin'  out. 

"These-here  cy-clones  a-foolin'  round — 

And  back'ard  crops  ! — and  wind  and  rain  ! — 
And  yit  the  corn  that's  wallerd  down 
May  elbow  up  again ! — 
They  ain't  no  sense,  as  I  can  see, 
Fer  mortuls,  sich  as  us,  to  be 
A-faultin'  Natchur's  wise  intents, 
And  lockin'  horns  with  Providence  I 

"It  hain't  no  use  to  grumble  and  complain ; 

It's  jest  as  cheap  and  easy  to  rejoice. — 
When  God  sorts  out  the  weather  and  sends  rain, 

W'y,  rain's  my  choice." 

This  is  not  fatalism.  It  is  the  bed-rock  of  the 
most  comfortable  philosophy  of  life.  Let  the  "rain" 
stand  for  all  the  pain,  the  annoyances,  the  disap 
pointments,  the  frustrated  plans  of  life,  the  things 


120      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

that  perplex  us  and  that  vex  us,  and  then  remember 
that  just  when  the  "rain"  threatens, 

"And  maybe,  whilse  you're  wundern  who 
You've  fool-like  lent  your  umbrell'  to, 

And  want  it — out'll  pop  the  sun, 
And  you'll  be  glad  you  hain't  got  none !" 

And  the  calamity  that  impended  does  not  happen — 
or  if  it  does,  and  turns  you  aside  from  the  path  you 
have  worked  out  for  yourself,  then  when  you  have 
climbed  the  hill  of  the  future  and  look  back  over 
the  path  you  have  trod  you  can  see  unmistakable 
signs  of  the  guiding  hand  of  God  all  the  way  past. 
True,  God  is  incomprehensible  in  His  Providence; 
but  Providence  is  inferred  from  Redemption,  and 
that  in  turn  shifts  back  to  Creation.  For  God  cre 
ated  the  universe  because  of  His  desire  to  communi 
cate  His  life ;  and  to  it,  therefore,  He  holds  the  same 
relation  that  a  parent  does  to  a  child.  It  might  help 
us  to  start  with  the  parental  instinct,  with  its  pa 
tience,  its  unselfishness,  its  self-denying  love,  and 
reason  from  that  up  to  God.  It  would  be  well  for 
us,  also,  to  recall  the  Providences  in  our  own  lives, 
to  have  an  autobiography  in  our  minds  of  the  influ 
ences  that  have  entered  into  the  shaping  of  our  lives 
and  the  molding  of  our  careers.  Thus  will  it  be 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       121 

easy  for  us  to  make  "rain  our  choice"  when  God 
sorts  it  out  for  us.  For  we  know  that  "God  is 
mightier  than  the  storm,"  as  Riley  says  in  "Heat- 
Lightning"  : 

"If  the  darkened  heavens  lower, 
Wrap  thy  cloak  around  thy  form ; 

Though  the  tempest  rise  in  power, 
God  is  mightier  than  the  storm  I" 

One  of  the  greatest  hymns  of  the  Church  in  which 
Christians  have  expressed  their  faith  for  many  years 
begins : 

"God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 
His  wonders  to  perform." 

It  is  a  stately  and  majestic  hymn,  but  no  truer  to 
Scripture  and  not  as  understandable  to  the  common 
people  as  is  "A  Hymb  of  Faith"  written  by  Jar.ies 
Whitcomb  Riley.  It  was  one  of  his  early  poems  to 
appear  with  the  pseudonym  "Benj.  F.  Johnson  of 
Boone,"  being  preceded  only  by  "The  Old  Swim- 
min'-Hole"  and  "Thoughts  fer  the  Discuraged 
Farmer."  Mr.  Riley  began  to  write  these  "Benj. 
F.  Johnson"  poems  while  he  was  employed  on  the 
Indianapolis  Journal  in  the  summer  of  1882.  At 
first  he  was  not  known  as  the  author  of  them.  He 
represented  them  as  having  been  written  by  a  "coun- 


122      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

try  poet,"  by  this  method  creating  for  them  the  at 
mosphere  of  perfect  reality.  Usually  he  composed 
a  letter,  also  purporting  to  be  from  "Benj.  F.  John 
son  of  Boone  County,"  to  accompany  the  publica 
tion  of  the  poem.  Thus,  with  "A  Hymb  of  Faith" 
was  supposed  to  come  this  letter : 

"It  will  be  an  undoubtable  surprise  to  you  to  git 
the  poem  I  now  send  to  you  herein  enclosed;  but  I 
was  a-readin'  one  which  starts  out  'God  moves  in  a 
mysterious  way  His  wonders  to  pur  form,'  and  the 
idy  struck  me  that  I  could  write  off  somepin  in  that 
style  which  would  express  a  man's  views,"  etc. 

Then  follows  the  "Hymb  of  Faith,"  which  is  more 
of  a  prayer  than  a  hymn : 

"O,    Thou    that    doth    all    things    devise 

And  fashion  f er  the  best, 
He'p  us  who  sees  with  mortul  eyes 

To  overlook  the  rest. 

"They's  times,  of  course,  we  grope  in  doubt, 

And  in  afflictions  sore ; 
So   knock  the   louder,    Lord,    without, 

And  we'll  unlock  the  door. 

"Make  us  to  feel,  when  times  looks  bad, 

And  tears  in  pity  melts, 
Thou  wast  the  only  he'p  we  had 

When  they  was  nothin'  else." 

Then  follow  a  half-dozen  stanzas  describing  the  buf- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      123 

fetings,  and  yet  the  triumph,  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
after  which  comes  this  expression  of  faith: 

"No    matter,   then,    how   all   is   mixed 

In  our  near-sighted  eyes, 
All  things   is   fer   the  best,  and  fixed 

Out  straight  in  Paradise. 

"Then  take  things  as  God  sends  'em  here, 

And,  ef  we  live  er  die, 
Be  more  and  more  contenteder, 

Without  a-astin'  why." 

Are  you  lonesome,  so  lonesome,  and  does  your 
back  ache,  and  your  head  ache,  and  your  heart  ache  ? 
God  is  with  you — you  are  not  alone.  In  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ,  He  said:  "Lo,  I  am  with  you  al 
ways,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  Is  the  road 
that  you  are  traveling  rough  and  steep?  But  if  you 
look  you  may  see  the  Master's  footprints  in  the 
road.  And  full  often  God  uses  our  aches  and  sor 
rows  and  burdens  to  make  us  conscious  of  His  pres 
ence,  according  to  Riley's  touching  poem,  "There  Is 
a  Need" : 

"There  is  a  need  for  every  ache  or  pain 
That  falls  unto  our  lot.  No  heart  may  bleed 

That  resignation  may  not  heal  again 
And  teach  us — there's  a  need. 


124      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"There  is  a  need  for  every  tear  that  drips 
Adown  the  face  of  sorrow.  None  may  heed, 

But  weeping  washes  whiter  on  the  lips 
Our  prayers — and  there's  a  need. 

"There  is  need  for  weariness  and  dearth 
Of  all  that  brings  delight.  At  topmost  speed 

Of  pleasure  sobs  may  break  amid  our  mirth 
Unheard — and  there's  a  need. 

"There  is  need  for  all  the  growing  load 
Of  agony  we  bear  as  years  succeed ; 

For  lo,  the  Master's  footprints  in  the  road 
Before  us — There's  a  need." 

Is  this  anything  more  than  a  poetic  way  of  ex 
pressing  the  great  words  of  Saint  Paul :  "We  know 
that  to  them  that  love  God  all  things  work  together 
for  good,  even  to  them  that  are  called  according  to 
His  purpose."  All  things :  the  dark  and  the  light, 
the  sad  and  the  joyous.  "The  Best  is  Good  Enough" 
is  the  title  of  one  of  our  poet's  most  thoughtful  pro 
ductions,  the  climax  of  which  is : 

"One  only  knows  our  needs,  and  He 

Does  all  of  the  distributing. 
I  quarrel  not  with  Destiny: 
The  best  is  good  enough  for  me." 

God  is  the  Divine  Physician.  He  "knows  our 
needs."  We  shall  trust  Him  to  do  "all  the  dis 
tributing."  He  knows  what  distribution  to  make 
of  the  "all  things"  to  make  them  work  together  for 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       125 

our  good,  as  a  physician  knows  how  to  compound 
certain  drugs,  any  one  of  which  alone  might  be  in 
jurious  to  us,  but  which  work  together  for  our  heal 
ing. 

The  same  comforting  thought  is  repeated  in  the 
poem  entitled  "We  to  Sigh  Instead  of  Sing,"  set 
ting  forth  the  thoughtful  goodness  of  God.  He  in 
troduces  this  thought  by  describing  a  day  of  "rain, 
rain,  nothing  but  rain,"  which  was  followed  by  a 
day  of  shining  splendor,  and  then  passes  on  to  show 
that  the  tender  God  will  cause  the  day  of  weeping  to 
be  followed  by  a  day  of  rejoicing.  He  says : 

"We    to    sigh    instead    of    sing, 

Yesterday,  in  sorrow, 
While  the  Lord  was   fashioning 

This  for  our  To-morrow  1" 

In  "The  Sermon  of  the  Rose"  our  bard  again  ex 
presses  his  faith  in  the  intense  and  personal  care  of 
God.  This  mellifluous,  highly  symbolical  poem  opens 
with  these  words : 

"Wilful  we  are,  in  our  infirmity 

Of   childish  questioning   and   discontent 
Whate'er  befalls  us  is  divinely  meant— 
Thou  Truth  the  clearer   for  thy  mystery! 
Make  us  to  meet  what  is  or  is  to  be 
With    fervid    welcome,    knowing    it    is    sent 
To   serve  us   in   some   way   full   excellent, 


126      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Though  we  discern  it  all  belatedly. 
The  rose  buds,  and  the  rose  blooms,  and  the  rose 
Bows  in  the  dews,  and  in  its  fulness,  lo, 

Is  in  the  lover's  hand, — then  on  the  breast 
Of  her  he  loves, — and  there  dies. — And  who  knows 
What  fate  of  all  a  rose  may  undergo 
Is  fairest,  dearest,  sweetest,  loveliest?" 

Thank  you,  dear  Riley;  I  do  believe  that  "what- 
e'er  befalls  us  is  divinely  meant" — provided,  of 
course,  that  we  "love  God."  Mr.  Riley  once  wrote 
a  letter  to  a  friend  in  adversity  in  which  he  said : 

"No  mortal  condition  is  better  than  the  one  He 
seems  to  weigh  you  down  with.  In  my  own  case  I 
am  coming  every  day  to  see  clearer  the  gracious  uses 
of  adversity. — Simply,  it  is  not  adversity.  It  is  the 
very  tenderest — most  loving  and  most  helpful  touch 
of  the  hand  Divine." 

In  harmony  with  the  doctrine  of  this  letter,  we 
have  his  poem  "Kissing  the  Rod,"  which  probably  is 
as  complete  a  summary  of  his  message  to  mankind 
as  is  to  be  found  in  any  one  of  his  poems : 

"O  heart  of  mine,  we  shouldn't 

Worry  so! 
What  weVe  missed  of  calm  we  couldn't 

Have,  you  know ! 
What  we've  met  of  stormy  pain, 
And  of  sorrow's  driving  rain, 
We  can  better  meet  again, 

If  it  blow ! 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"We  have  erred  in  that  dark  hour 

We  have  known, 
When  our  tears  fell  with  the  shower, 

All  alone ! 

Were  not  shine  and  shower  blent 
As  the  Gracious  Master  meant? — • 
Let  us  temper  our  content 

With  His  own. 

"For,  we  know,  not  every  morrow- 
Can  be  sad ; 

So,  forgetting  all  the  sorrow 
We  have  had, 

Let  us  fold  away  our  fears, 

And  put  by  our  foolish  tears, 

And   through   all   the   coming   years 
Just  be  glad." 

In  "At  Sea,"  he  represents  us  as  being  out  on  a 
sea,  "with  lifted  sails  of  prayer,"  in  quest  of  light, 
and  not  finding  it.  Then  he  beseeches  that  the  One 
who  wrought  earth  and  sea  will 

"Blow  back  upon  our  foolish  quest 

With  all  the  driving  rain 
Of   blinding   tears   and   wild   unrest, 

And  waft  us  home  again  1" 

"Thoughts  fer  the  Discuraged  Farmer"  was  the 
second  poem  that  Mr.  Riley  wrote  under  the  pen- 
name  of  "Benj.  F.  Johnson  of  Boone  County."  In 
it,  the  hale,  sound,  artless,  lovable  character  is  at  his 


128      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

best.  It  is  brimful  of  the  most  delightful  pictorial 
language.  It  expresses  immaterial  ideas  by  words 
which  suggest  pictures  from  the  farm.  It  is  a  piece 
of  the  wild,  capricious  music  of  nature.  It  is  an 
outburst  of  lyrical  feeling.  It  is  not  to  our  purpose 
to  give  it  all  here;  but  rather  do  I  pick  out  a  few 
lines  that  reaffirm  the  providential  care  of  God: 

"Some  says  the  crops  is  ruined,  and  the  corn's  drownded  out, 
And  propha-sy  the  wheat  will  be  a  failure,  without  doubt; 
But  the  kind  Providence  that  has  never  failed  us  yet, 
Will  be  on  hands  onc't  more  at  the  'leventh  hour,  I  bet !" 

Then  after  giving  further  and  worthy  reasons  for 
rejoicing,  the  poem  ends  with  those  oft-quoted  glor 
ious  lines : 

"Whatever  be  our  station,  with  Providence  fer  guide, 
Sich  fine  circumstances  ort  to  make  us  satisfied; 
Fer  the  world  is   full  of  roses,  and  the  roses   full  of  dew, 
And  the  dew  is  full  of  heavenly  love  that  drips  fer  me  and  you." 

How  different  that  from  the  philosophical  doc 
trine  called  Pessimism — that  the  world,  if  not  the 
worst  possible,  is  worse  than  none  at  all.  In  an 
other  of  his  poems  entitled  "Our  Queer  Old  World," 
Mr.  Riley  has  four  stanzas  in  which  he  describes  in 
dialect  style  the  certain  funny,  and  tragical,  and  al 
ways  to-be-complained-at  existence  of  the  child,  and 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       129 

of  the  lad,  and  of  the  young  chap,  and  of  the  old 
man.  And  in  the  last  stanza  after  describing  the 
follies  and  shows  and  lies  and  bad  weather,  and  in 
firmities  of  age,  he  says : 

"We're  not  a-faultin'  the  Lord's  own  plan— > 

All  things  's  jest 

At  their  best. — 
It's  a  purty  good  world,  old  man  1" 

Another  of  the  "Benj.  F.  Johnson  of  Boone" 
poems  that  sets  forth  his  homely  philosophy  of  con 
tentment  with  things  the  way  the  Lord  does  them  is 
"Us  Farmers  in  the  Country."  After  enumerating 
the  phases  of  the  weather  at  which  "we're  apt  to 
<T  imble  some"  (and  the  weather  symbolizes  all  the 
\  ^.ssitudes  of  life)  he  decides: 

"Now  what  I'd  like  and  what  you'd  like  is< plane  enugh  to  see: 
It's  jest  to  have  old  Providence  drop  round  on  you  and  me 
And  ast  us  what  our  view  is  first,  regardin'  shine  er  rain, 
And  post  'em  when  to  shet  her  off,   er  let  her  on  again! 
And  yit  I'd  ruther,  after  all — consider'n'  other  chores 
I'  got  on  hands,  a-tendin'  both  to  my  affares  and  yours— 
I'd  ruther  miss  the  blame  I'd  git,  a-rulin'  things  up  thare, 
And  spend  my  extry  time  in  praise  and  gratitude  and  prayer." 

The  last  phrase  introduces  us  to  another  phase  of 
Riley's  doctrine  of  God :  "And  spend  my  extra  time" 
not  only  in  "praise  and  gratitude"  but  also  in 


130      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"prayer"  He  has  no  more  doubt  about  the  efficacy 
of  prayer,  than  Saint  James  has.  James  says :  "Pray 
one  for  another.  .  .  .  The  supplication  of  a  right 
eous  man  availeth  much."  Riley  makes  his  "Noted 
.Traveler"  tell  the  story  of  certain  slaves  who  had 
escaped  from  slavery,  and  kept  on  faithfully  pray 
ing  and  working  until  their  every  son  at  last  was 
free  as  themselves,  and  then  declares : 

" — So  prevail 

The  faithful!— So  had  the  Lord  upheld 
His  servants  of  both  deed  and  prayer, — • 
His  the  glory  unparalleled — 
Theirs  the  reward." 

The  same  positive  tone  closes  the  "Envoy"  of  one 
of  his  earlier  volumes : 

".   .   .   Listen,  friend  I 
God  answers  with  a  silence  pure  as  gold — 
Just  as  of  old." 

Hence,  if  we  do  not  get  the  answer  we  expected, 
if  no  answer  comes  but  silence,  still  his  faith  in 
God's  goodness  is  so  strong  that  the  silence  is  "pure 
as  gold."  And  he  sees  a  blessing  in  delayed  an 
swers,  for  in  his  "Thanksgiving"  poem  he  exhorts 
us  to  thankfulness  for  love  and  sorrow,  for  winter 
clouds  and  storms,  for  summer  calms,  and  "for  all 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       131 

the  things  that  come  as  alms  from  out  the  open  hand 
of  Providence,"  but  especially, 

"Let  us  be  thankful — thankful  for  the  prayers 
Whose  gracious  answers  were  long,  long  delayed, 

That  they  might  fall  upon  us  unawares, 
And  bless  us,  as  in  greater  need  we  prayed." 

The  spirit  and  stress  of  prayer  pervades  much  of 
our  bard's  work,  even  when  it  is  not  labeled  as  de 
votional;  but  there  are  enough  "prayers"  to  merit 
being  collected  and  issued  in  a  separate  volume. 
They  are  as  helpful  as  the  prayers  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  and  would  not  be  out  of  place  on  any 
shelf  of  devotional  classics.  Take  for  example,  such 
poems  as  "Ike  Walton's  Prayer,"  "The  Mortul 
Prayer,"  "The  Prayer  Perfect,"  "Kneeling  with 
Herrick,"  "The  Christmas  Carol,"  "God  Bless  Us 
Every  One."  In  "A  Hymb  of  Faith,"  in  early  print, 
the  following  lines  were  used  as  a  sub-title : 

"So  ran  the  honest,  earnest  prayer 
Of  old  Ben  Johnson  pleading  there." 

It  is  worth  while  praying  to  God  because  we  are 
assured  of  God's  goodness  and  love  and  tender 
mercy.  He  sympathizes  with  us.  This  is  the  com 
forting  and  inspiring  teaching  of  "He  Cometh  in 
Sweet  Sense" : 


132      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"He  cometh  in  sweet  sense  to  thee, 
Be  it  or  dawn,  or  noon,  or  night, — 

No  deepest  pain,  nor  halest  glee 
But  He  discerneth  it  aright. 

"If  there  be  tears  bedim  thine  eyes, 
His  sympathy  thou  findest  plain, — 

The  darkest  midnight  of  the  skies 
He  weepeth  with  the  tears  of  rain. 

"If  thou  art  joyful,  He  hath  had 
His  gracious  will,  and  lo,  'tis  well, — 

As  thou  are  glad,  so  He  is  glad, 
Nor  mercy  strained  one  syllable. 

"Wild  vows  are  words,  as  prayers  are  words, 
God's  mercy  is  not  measured  by 

Our  poor  deservings :  He  affords 
To  listen,  if  we  laugh  or  cry." 

Amidst  the  jarring  contentions  of  opposing  creeds 
with  emphasis  upon  this  or  that  man-made  differ 
ence,  we  so  often  forget  that  the  mercy  of  God  in 
unrestrained  qualities  is  offered  to  all;  even  as  the 
rain  loves  all  leaves,  or  as  the  sun  kisses  the  little 
hillocks  no  less  than  it  does  the  great  mountains  that 
are  eager  for  the  anguish  of  holding  up  the  sky  on 
their  brawny  shoulders.  "God's  Mercy" — what  a 
big  name  for  a  little  verse  of  four  lines,  and  yet, 
who  is  there  among  the  blundering,  stumbling,  sin 
ning  sons  of  man  that  does  not  think  that  the  poet 
speaks  the  truth  when  he  says : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       133 

"Behold,  one  faith  endureth  still — 
Let  factions  rail  and  creeds  contend, 

God's  mercy  was,  and  is,  and  will 
Be  with  us,  foe  and  friend." 

It  is  because  of  our  firm  and  steadfast  faith  in 
God's  mercy  that  we  join  with  Riley  in  the  prayer 
he  offers  in  "America's  Thanksgiving" : 

"And,  Father,  give  us  first  to  comprehend, 

No  ill  can  come  from  Thee ;  lean  Thou  and  lend 

Us  clearer  sight  to  see 

Our  boundless  debt  to  Thee, 
Since  all  Thy  deeds  are  blessings,  in  the  end." 

Who  has  not  waited  in  "The  Watches  of  the 
Night"  ?  What  a  description  of  each  one's  own  ex 
periences  at  some  time  in  his  life.  We  have  in  this 
poem  the  darkness,  the  desolation,  the  contrition,  the 
fear,  the  awful  hush,  the  stifling  darkness,  the  spec 
tral  visits,  the  shuddering  sins  of  wrongs  we  have 
wrought ;  and  then  he  asks  whether  we  dare  believe 
that  we  shall  win  the  dawn  at  last;  and  then  he 
shows  that  One  leads  through  "The  Watches  of  the 
Night" : 

"He  is  with  us  through  all  trials,  in  His  mercy  and  His 

might ; — 

With  our  mothers  there  about  Him,  all  our  sorrow  dis 
appears, — 


134      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Till  the  silence  of  our  sobbing  is  the  prayer  the  Master 

hears 

And  His  hand  is  laid  upon  us  with  the  tenderness  of  tears 
In  the  waning  of  the  watches  of  the  night." 

So,  because  we  believe  in  God,  who  loves  us  and 
cares  for  us  and  watches  over  us,  and  shapes  our 
destiny  and  answers  our  prayers,  we  will  take  up 
Riley's  "Song  of  the  Cruise"  : 

"And  in  rapture  we'll  ride  through  the  stormiest  gales, 

For  God's  hand's  on  the  helm  and  His  breath  in  the  sails. 

Then  murmur  no  more, 

In  lull  or  in  roar, 
But  smile  and  be  brave  till  the  voyage  is  o'er." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  CHRIST  IN  RILEY'S  RHYMES — A  CHRISTMAS 
MEDITATION 

THE  Christmas  issue  of  the  New  York  World 
in  1890  contained  greetings  from  the  most 
famous  writers  of  that  day — such  writers  as  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  Mark  Twain,  Ella  Wheeler  Wil- 
cox,  John  P.  Newman,  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  and 
others.  Mr.  Riley's  "Greeting"  was  telegraphed  by 
request  to  the  editor  of  the  World  on  the  day  be 
fore  Christmas.  It  consists  of  only  six  lines;  but 
those  six  lines  reveal  the  kindly,  gentle  spirit  of 
America's  best-loved  poet — his  simplicity,  his  de 
mocracy,  his  cheerful  optimism,  his  love  of  man 
kind,  and  his  adherence  to  the  ancient  beliefs  and 
pieties.  His  "Greeting"  was  as  follows : 

"A  word  of  Godspeed  and  good  cheer 

To  all  on  earth,  or  far  or  near, 

Or  friend  or  foe,  or  thine  or  mine — 

In  echo,  of  the  voice  divine, 

Heard  when  the  star  bloomed  forth  and  lit 

The  world's  face,  with  God's  smile  on  it." 

135 


136     THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

What  an  unusually  beautiful  way  that  is  of  speak 
ing  of  the  incarnation  of  our  Lord!  Ten  years  be 
fore,  in  one  of  the  most  mellifluous  poems  he  ever 
wrote,  "Sun  and  Rain,"  Mr.  Riley  had  made  use  of 
practically  the  same  phrase  where  he  spoke  of  the 
sun  and  rain  that  all  day  had  vied  with  each  other 
in  dowering  earth  and  sea : 

"With  their  glad  wealth,  till  each,  as  it  descends, 
Is  mingled  with  the  other,  where  it  blends 
In  one  warm,  glimmering  mist  that  fell  on  me 
As  once  God's  smile  fell  over  Galilee." 

I  suppose  if  we  were  expressing  the  same  idea  in 
unadorned  prose  that  instead  of  speaking  of  God's 
"smile,"  we  would  speak  of  the  favor  or  propitious- 
ness  of  God  manifested  in  the  coming  of  Jesus  into 
the  world. 

Another  of  Mr.  Riley's  Christmas  poems  is  en 
titled  "Das  Krist  Kindel."  In  it  he  describes  how; 
on  a  chill  December  night,  while  the  hungry  winter 
prowled  without,  he  sat  in  his  "old  split-bottomed 
rocker"  musing  all  alone  before  a  glowing  fire,  and 
while  he  mused  he  saw  in  vision  "the  fireplace 
changing  to  a  bright  proscenium."  With  exquisite 
charm  he  evokes  and  exhibits  a  creation  of  little 
actors  on  a  mimic  stage,  engaged  with  delights 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       137 

delectable  until  they  espy  a  Baby-Boy,  then  in  an 
ecstasy  of  glee  they  throw  aside  their  treasures  as 
they  cluster  around  him.  He  is  described  as 

"...   a  wondrous  little  fellow,  with  a  dainty  double-chin, 
And  chubby  cheeks,  and  dimples  for  the  smiles  to  blossom  in ;" 

and  while  a  group,  presenting  costly  presents,  sur 
rounds  the  happy  mother,  our  seer  thrills  with  awe 
and  wonder  at  the  following  melody  of  prayer  that 
drifts  o'er  his  hearing: 

"By  the  splendor  in  the  heavens,  and  the  hush  upon  the  sea, 
And  the  majesty  of  silence  reigning  over  Galilee, — 
We  feel  Thy  kingly  presence,  and  we  humbly  bow  the  knee 
And  lift  our  hearts  and  voices  in  gratefulness  to  Thee. 

"Thy  messenger  has  spoken,  and  our  doubts  have  fled  and 

gone 
As  the  dark  and  spectral  shadows  of  the  night  before  the 

dawn; 

And,  in  the  kindly  shelter  of  the  light  around  us  drawn, 
We  would  nestle  down  forever  in  the  breast  we  lean  upon. 

"You  have  given  us  a  shepherd — you  have  given  us  a  guide, 
And  the  light  of  Heaven  grew  dimmer  when  You  sent  him 

from  Your  side, 
But  he  comes  to  lead  Thy  children  where  the  gates  will  open 

wide 
To  welcome  his  returning  when  his  works  are  glorified." 

The  birth  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  greatest  event  in 
the  annals  of  time.  The  historical  facts  of  His  life 
are  as  well  authenticated  as  are  the  facts  concerning 


Julius  Caesar,  Socrates,  or  any  of  the  other  great 
ones  of  history.  His  birth  marks  the  boundary  line 
between  B.  C.  and  A.  D.,  and  the  infidel  who  to-day 
writes  a  letter,  setting  down  the  date  on  it,  unwit 
tingly  acknowledges  the  fact  that  nineteen  hundred 
and  twenty  years  ago  Jesus  Christ  was  born. 

When  the  poet  says,  "the  light  of  Heaven  grew 
dimmer  when  You  sent  him  from  Your  side,"  it  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  what  Saint  Paul  had 
said  long  before  concerning  "Christ  Jesus :  who,  ex 
isting  in  the  form  of  God  counted  not  the  being  on 
an  equality  writh  God  a  thing  to  be  grasped,  but 
emptied  himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being 
made  in  the  likeness  of  men."  The  Incarnation  is 
not  a  division  of  God;  it  is  rather  a  new  self-expres 
sion  of  God — made  possible  because  of  the  kinship 
between  God  and  man,  and  yet  possible  because  of 
the  greatness  which  belongs  to  God  alone. 

"You  have  given  us  a  shepherd — you  have  given  us  a  guide," 

that  is  the  twenty-third  Psalm,  plus  the  tenth  chap 
ter  of  St.  John. 

"...   he  comes  to  lead  Thy  children  where  the  gates  will 

open  wide 
To  welcome  his  returning  when  his  works  are  glorified." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      139 

That  is  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  accord 
ing  to  Saint  John. 

The  last  Christmas  before  his  death,  Mr.  Riley 
sent  me  as  a  greeting  the  second  verse  of  the  fol 
lowing  "Child's  Christmas  Carol" : 

"Christ  used  to  be  like  you  and  me, 
When  just  a  lad  in  Galilee, — 
So  when  we  pray,  on  Christmas  Day, 
He  favors  first  the  prayers  we  say; 
Then  waste  no  tear,  but  pray  with  cheer, 
This  gladdest  day  of  all  the  year: 

"O  Brother  mine  of  birth  Divine, 
Upon  this  natal  day  of  thine 
Bear  with  our  stress  of  happiness 
Nor  count  our  reverence  less 
Because  with  glee  and  jubilee 
Our  hearts  go  singing  up  to  Thee." 

The  teaching  of  that  is  plain :  "Christ  used  to  be 
like  you  and  me."  He  lived  a  genuine  human  life; 
He  increased  in  wisdom  and  in  stature ;  He  worked ; 
He  grew  weary;  He  suffered  the  pangs  of  hunger; 
nothing  that  belongs  to  normal  human  life  was  for 
eign  to  Him.  But  that  is  not  all :  He  was  "of  birth 
divine."  Under  ordinary  circumstances  it  would  be 
difficult  to  believe  in  a  miraculous  birth ;  but  Christ's 
divine  life  justifies  belief  in  His  miraculous  concep 
tion.  It  would  be  just  as  difficult  to  explain  away 


140      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

the  life  that  He  lived  as  to  explain  away  His  birth. 
Since  His  whole  life  was  a  wonder,  wrhy  should  it  not 
have  begun  as  a  wonder  ?  As  we  move  along  in  this 
thought,  we  feel  that  our  intelligence  will  reel  with 
the  stupendous  confusion  of  the  mystery  of  God  be 
coming  a  child,  when  we  turn  to  "A  Hymb  of 
Faith,"  which  was  written  by  our  gentle  poet  in  the 
Hoosier  dialect,  and  was  first  published  as  a  "Ben 
jamin  F.  Johnson  of  Boone"  poem — a  pseudonym 
under  which  Riley  published  his  earlier  dialect 
verses,  in  order  to  create  more  perfectly  for  them 
the  air  of  perfect  reality.  "A  Hymb  of  Faith"  was 
not  written  on  the  subject  we  are  now  considering; 
but  out  of  the  heart  of  it  we  take  the  following 
stanzas: 

"Ef  storms  and  tempusts  dred  to  see 

Makes  black  the  heavens  ore, 
They  done  the  same  in  Galilee 

Two  thousand  years  before. 

"But  after  all,  the  golden  sun 

Poured  out  its  flood  on  them 
That  watched  and  waited  f  er  the  One 

Then  borned  in  Bethlyham. 

"Also,  the  star  of  holy  writ 

Made  noonday  of  the  night, 
Whiles  other  stars  that  looked  at  it 

Was  envious  with  delight. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      141 

"The  sages  then  in  wurship  bowed, 

From  ev'ry  clime  so  fare; 
O,  sinner,  think  of  that  glad  crowd 

That  congergated  thare ! 

"They  was  content  to  fall  in  ranks 

With  one  that  knowed  the  way 
From  good  old  Jurden's  stormy  banks 

Clean  up  to  Jedgmunt  Day." 

That  explains  why  Christmas  Day  is  the  birthday 
of  the  best  hopes  in  man.  Nothing  that  can  be  said 
about  man's  rights  and  powers  and  prerogatives  ap 
proaches  even  remotely  to  this :  "The  Word  became 
flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us."  The  eternal  God  took 
our  human  nature  upon  Himself  that  He  might  ap 
proach  us  in  our  own  language  and  suffer  tempta 
tion  in  all  points  like  as  we  do,  and  wear  this  human 
nature  as  our  Representative  before  the  throne  of 
God ;  and  thus  He  becomes  our  Shepherd  and  Guide, 
for  He  knows  the  way 

"From  good  old  Jurden's  stormy  banks 
Clean  up  to  Jedgmunt  Day." 

The  Person  resulting  from  the  Incarnation,  truly 
human  and  truly  divine,  was  a  genuine  person,  pos 
sessed  of  a  consciousness  and  a  will,  wrho  saw  things 
as  they  are.  Is  not  this  the  teaching  of  the  chorus 


142      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

in  the  "Plantation  Hymn" — one  of  the  few  poems 
which  Riley  has  written  in  the  negro  dialect — which 
runs  as  follows : 

"Mahster !   Jesus 

You  done  come  down  to  please  us, 
And  dahs  de  good  Lord  sees  us, 
As  he  goes  walkin'  by  1" 

Truly,  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sin 
ners. 

In  "A  Song  for  Christmas,"  our  national  bard 
asks  that  we  chant  for  him  a  jovial  song,  filled  with 
laughter,  and  the  echo  of  childish  voices,  and  the 
blare  of  tasseled  bugles,  and  the  throb  of  the  toy 
drum ;  but  his  tone  sweetens,  as  with  his  eyes  on  the 
spiritual  meaning  of  the  day,  he  says : 

"But  O  let  your  voice  fall  fainter, 

Till,  blent  with  a  minor  tone, 
You  temper  your  song  with  the  beauty 

Of  the  pity  Christ  hath  shown." 

That  is  right  fine;  for  Christ's  whole  life  was  a  min 
istry  of  usefulness.  He  went  about  doing  good.  He 
was  moved  with  compassion  for  the  people  who 
were  distressed  and  scattered  as  sheep  not  having  a 
shepherd.  His  hands  were  always  reached  out  in 
help  to  those  who  stood  in  need.  He  grew  foot- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      143 

sore  and  weary  as  He  tramped  earth's  dusty  high 
ways  on  His  mission  of  immeasurable  mercy.  And 
just  because  James  Whitcomb  Riley  was  touched 
with  the  pity  which  Jesus  showed,  he  exhorts : 

"And  sing  one  verse  for  the  voiceless ; 

And  yet,  ere  the  song  be  done, 
A  verse  for  the  ears  that  hear  not, 

And  a  verse  for  the  sightless  one: 

"For  though  it  be  time  for  singing 

A  merry  Christmas  glee, 
Let  a  slow  sweet  voice  of  pathos 

Run  through  the  melody." 

Our  typical  American  poet  never  questions  the 
miracles  of  Christ.  Poets  have  always  been  truer 
teachers  than  the  logicians.  They  are  seers.  Poetry 
is  the  celestial  garment  of  truth.  That  is  why  the 
poet  has  no  difficulty  over  the  "violation  of  the  laws 
of  nature."  He  knows  that  a  law  of  nature  can  not 
compel  God;  for  all  the  potency  a  law  has  is  the 
potency  of  the  person  it  expresses.  Mr.  Riley  seems 
to  take  it  for  granted  that  given  such  a  Christ  as  the 
Gospel  writers  have  drawn,  and  it  would  be  just  as 
natural  for  Him  to  perform  miracles  as  for  a  skilled 
pilot  to  guide  a  ship.  Call  the  ship  "nature,"  and 
the  pilot  supernatural,  and  you  have  the  whole  story. 


144      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Hence,  when  Riley  was  asked  to  write  a  poem  for 
a  G.  A.  R.  Encampment,  he  wrote  "A  Peace-Hymn 
of  the  Republic,"  in  which  he  described  the  Ship  <*£  • 
State  as  having  groped  its  way  through  the  blinding 
smoke  of  our  Civil  War,  and  then  these  words : 

"As  One  who  spake  the  dead  awake,  with  life-blood  leaping 

warm — 
Who  walked  the  troubled  waters,  all  unscathed,  in   mortal 

form, — 

We  felt  our  Pilot's  presence  with  His  hand  upon  the  storm, 
As  we  went  sailing  on." 

It  is  all  there :  a  belief  in  Christ's  miracles  of  long 
ago,  and  a  belief  in  his  overruling  Presence  with  us 
to-day.  Is  this  not  a  good  place  to  close  this  Christ 
mas  meditation?  For  the  Ship  of  our  Ideals  this 
Christmas-tide  is  creaking  and  groaning  and  trem 
bling  under  the  terrible  storm  of  world-unrest.  To 
feel  the  Presence  of  the  Miracle- Worker  of  old  as 
our  Pilot,  and  to  believe  that  somehow  or  other  He 
has  His  hand  upon  the  storm ;  it  is  enough. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  CROSS  IN  RILEY'S  RHYMES  :  A  PASSION  WEEK 
MEDITATION 

JAMES  WHITCOMB  RILEY  is  not  commonly 
thought  of  as  a  religious  poet.  He  is  famous 
for  his  child  rhymes,  his  nature  poems  and  his  hu 
morous  poems  in  the  Hoosier  dialect.  Yet  in  a  very 
real  sense  he  is  a  religious  poet;  not  because  of  the 
recurrence  of  holy  phrases  in  his  work ;  but  because 
of  the  spirit  which  permeates  the  whole,  as  an  in 
candescent  light  shines  through  an  alabaster  vase. 
His  heart  is  often  hushed  in  reverence  and  in  his  un 
derstanding  is  a  temple  upon  whose  altar  burns  the 
celestial  fire  of  poetry. 

Can  I  find  in  him,  then,  this  Passion  Week,  any 
thing  to  minister  to  the  mood  of  the  season?  If  so, 
it  must  have  to  do  with  the  Cross.  The  Cross  is 
the  key-word  that  expresses  the  whole  of  this  week's 
significance  at  once.  It  is  the  master-word  of  our 
religion.  The  Cross  of  Christ  is  the  most  wonder- 

145 


146      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

ful  subject  that  ever  appealed  to  the  intellect,  the 
conscience  and  the  imagination  of  mankind.  I  do 
not  refer  merely  to  the  Roman  gallows.  I  mean 
rather  the  "Cross"  which  was  fashioned  in  eternity, 
and  whose  shadow  falls  on  the  disk  of  the  whole 
scheme  of  things.  I  pass  from  the  sign  to  the  thing 
signified,  meaning  nothing  less  than  the  atoning 
death  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Do  we  find  mention  of  this  fact  in  Riley  ?  I  have 
read  every  one  of  the  eleven  hundred  and  three 
poems  which  he  has  written,  and  in  only  five  of 
them  do  I  find  this  subject  mentioned.  And  how  is 
it  expressed  in  these  ? 

One  of  Mr.  Riley's  earlier  poems,  entitled  "The 
Vision  of  Rabbi  Ben  Isaac,"  opens  with  these 
•words : 

"For  three  score  years  my  wandering  feet  have  strayed 

Along  a  path  wherein  no  footprint  lay 
Of  Him,  who  of  the  cross  a  guide-board  made 

To  point  me  out  the  way." 

What  is  that  ?  The  Cross  of  Christ  is  a  guide- 
board  pointing  us  the  way  in  which  to  walk  ?  It  is 
even  so.  And  to  what  does  the  Cross  point  us? 
Tell  us,  dear  Riley;  for  I  am  allowing  you  to  give 
direction  to  this  meditation. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       147 

First  of  all,  it  condemns  a  spirit  of  self-righteous 
ness.  This  is  the  teaching  of  the  poem  from  which 
I  have  just  quoted.  In  glowing  imagery  Rabbi  Ben 
Isaac  is  made  to  relate  how  he  dreamed  that  he  was 
dead  to  all  outward  semblance,  but  with  a  scrap  of 
unfading  reason  still  in  his  head.  He  saw  his  float 
ing  spirit  plume  its  wings  for  its  upward  flight,  yet 
with  a  look  of  awe  hesitating.  Then 

"  'Go  on !'  I  called  to  it.    'Leap  into  space, 
And  sweep  a  way  to  glory  with  thy  wings !' " 

But  though  the  wings  were  crimson-dyed  with  hues 
of  Paradise,  his  spirit  was  troubled  because  they 
were  "such  trembling  things !" 

"  'Nay,  glorious  things  are  they,'  I  cried  amazed, 

And  veiled  my  vision  from  their  dazzling  light — 
'So,  get  thee  gone — their  maker  must  be  praised.'" 

That  is  the  common  character  and  disposition  of 
those  who  walk 

"Along  a  path  where  no  footprint  lay 

Of  Him  who  of  the  cross  a  guide-board  made" 

• — they  are  self-righteous — self-made,  and  "their 
maker  must  be  praised."  Obedient  to  Ben  Isaac's 
command,  his  spirit  sailed  across  the  gulf  of  dark- 


148      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

ness  until  it  seemed  no  larger  than  a  flake  of  star 
light,  but  when  it  saw  the  heavens  bloom  and  the 
angels  at  the  door  swarming  out  and  in: 

"Then  suddenly  the  voice  in  quaverings 

Fell  wailingly — 'Alas !  for  I  alone 
Of  all  the  glorious  throng  have  tarnished  wings 

That  Heaven  will  not  own. 

"  'The  angel  Truth  has  pityingly  said 
That  every  plume  impure  Christ  will  condemn, 

And  that  the  stain  self-righteousness  is  red 
As  blood  on  all  of  them.'" 

Then  he  called  to  his  soul  to  return  that  he  might 
bow  his  head  in  holier  prayer,  and  earn  a  recom 
pense  of  good.  But  it  was  not  until  the  angel  Faith 
had  inspired  him  to  look  above,  and  the  angel  Love 
had  baptized  him  with  her  tears,  and  he  beheld 
Christ  "with  sorrow  on  His  lips,"  that  his  soul  was 
cleansed  of  the  stain  of  self-righteousness. 

This  much  is  plain:  the  Cross  is  a  guide-board, 
pointing  us  to  Christ's  righteousness.  To  what  else 
does  it  point  us,  Mr.  Riley?  I  turn  now  to  one  of 
the  "Benjamin  F.  Johnson  of  Boone"  poems  (one 
of  the  early  Hoosier  dialect  poems  which  secured 
for  our  bard  national  attention),  entitled  "The 
Hoss."  It  is  permeated  with  a  delicious  whimsical 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       149 

humor.  The  whole  thing  is  a  panegyric  on  the 
horse,  and  is  in  no  sense  meant  to  be  a  religious 
poem ;  yet  one  verse  of  it  runs  as  follows : 

"Some  calls  the  hoss  'a  pore  dumb  brute,' 

And  yit,  like  Him  who  died  fer  you, 
I  say,  as  I  theyr  charge  refute, 

'Fergive ;  they  know  not  what  they  do !' " 

The  way  is  pointed  there  unmistakably  plainly: 
forgiveness  of  injuries.  That  is  what  Christ  had 
preached  in  His  life:  "Bless  them  that  curse  you; 
pray  for  them  that  despitefully  use  you."  And 
when  the  malice  of  His  enemies  had  compassed  what 
it  sought,  when  they  were  nailing  His  left  hand  fast 
to  the  Cross,  He  pushed  His  right  hand  up  among 
His  murderers  and  prayed :  "Father,  forgive  them ; 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  His  example  has 
made  His  teaching  forever  luminous.  He  has 
shown  me  how  to  suffer,  even  when  I  suffer  through 
the  fault  of  others.  When  His  cup  of  agony  was 
so  full  that  it  drowned  the  brim,  he  made  an  excuse 
for  the  cruel  malice  of  His  enemies. 

The  man  who  prays  for  his  enemies  will  have  the 
enmity  taken  out  of  his  own  heart;  they  may  hate 
him  still;  but  he  will  have  no  spitefulness  in  his 
heart  for  them.  Lord,  help  us,  for  Thy  sake,  for  the 


150      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

sake  of  those  we  seek  to  win,  and  for  the  sake  of 
these  poor  wandering  souls  of  ours,  to  pay  more 
heed  to  this  way  to  which  the  guide-board  of  the 
Cross  points.  For  "if  ye  forgive  not  men  their  tres 
passes,  neither  will  your  Father  forgive  your  tres 
passes." 

Further,  the  Cross  points  out  the  way  of  sacrifice 
for  the  sake  of  others.  Thus  in  Riley's  dialect 
Christmas  poem  "Them  Old  Cheery  Words,"  a 
poem  in  which  subtle  humor  and  pathos  are  blent 
like  bells  of  sweet  accord,  we  have  the  children 
gathering  home  for  Christmas,  and  "Mother"  com 
forting  and  helping  "Pap,"  dressing  the  wound  he 
received  in  the  war,  and  reading  to  him  the  news 
papers  put  on  file  while  he  was  with  Sherman : 

"Sometimes  he'd  git  het  up  some. — 
'Boys,'  he'd  say,  'and  you  girls,  too, 

Chris'mus  is  about  to  come ; 
So,  as  you've  a  right  to  do, 

Celebrate  it!   Lots  has  died, 

Same  as  Him  they  crucified, 

That  you  might  be  happy  here.' " 

Sacrifice  for  others — that  is  the  key-note  of  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  As  one  life-cell  is  lost  that 
another  may  live  and  grow;  as  the  blossom  is  sac 
rificed  for  the  coming  fruit;  as  the  mountains  are 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       151 

made  poor  to  enrich  the  valleys ;  as  the  soldier  gives 
himself  for  a  principle,  and  a  reformer  for  a  cause, 
and  a  mother  for  her  child,  so  the  Cross  of  Christ 
points  out  to  us  the  great  truth  that  we  also  ought 
to  lay  down  our  lives  for  others — not  in  the  degree 
and  way  in  which  Jesus  laid  down  His  as  an  expia 
tion,  but  as  a  service,  a  devotion,  a  consecration. 

".   .   .   Lots  has  died, 

Sama  as  Him  they  crucified, 

That  you  might  be  happy  here." 

The  same  thought  is  expressed,  no  less  emphatically 
because  incidentally,  in  one  of  the  poems  which  Mr. 
Riley  wrote  on  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  always  had 
a  great  love  for  Lincoln,  and  the  burden  of  this 
poem  is  to  describe  the  great  Emancipator's  life  as 
a  peaceful  one.  What  a  life  that  was!  He  desired 
to  toil  and  rest,  and  read  loved  books  beside  the 
cabin  fire,  and  listen  to  the  low  of  pastured  herds 
and  the  rhythmic  blows  of  woodman's  ax,  and 
dream  his  heroic  dreams.  Ah, 

"A  peaceful  life !   .   .   .   They  haled  him  even 

As  One  was  haled 

•  Whose  open  palms  were  nailed  toward  Heaven 

When  prayers  nor  aught  availed. 


152      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

And  lo,  he  paid  the  selfsame  price 

To  lull  a  nation's  awful  strife 
And  will  us,  through  the  sacrifice 

Of  self,  his  peaceful  life." 

This  points  me  to  two  different  facts:  First,  the 
awfulness  of  human  sin.  An  ancient  idealist  said : 
"O  Virtue,  if  thou  wert  to  become  incarnate,  all  men 
would  worship  thee."  Yet,  history  shows  that  the 
world  has  never  had  anything  better  than  contumely 
and  scorn  and  hate  and  torment  for  its  redeemers. 
Every  reform  has  had  to  fight  its  way.  Every  move 
ment  for  the  amelioration  of  human  conditions  has 
been  stained  with  blood.  And  when  Virtue  became 
incarnate,  men  hounded  Him  to  Calvary.  That  was 
sin  at  its  climax.  And  the  virus  which  at  its  fullest 
development  hailed  Him 

"Whose  open  palms  were  nailed  toward  Heaven 
When  prayers  nor  aught  availed," 

is  in  the  heart  of  every  man.  The  Cross  is  a  terrible 
manifestation  of  human  sin. 

But  the  other  thing  which  I  had  in  mind  is  hinted 
at  in  these  words : 

"And  will  us,  through  the  sacrifice 
Of  self,  his  peaceful  life." 

Though  Christ's  life  outwardly  was  a  troubled  one, 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      153 

with  tempestuous  waves  breaking  over  it  all  the 
time,  yet  His  inner  life  was  a  sea  of  glass — the  great 
calm  always  there.  Even  when  He  was  dogged 
through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  by  the  bloodhounds 
of  pharisaic  hate,  their  tongues  thirsting  for  His 
blood,  He  turned  to  His  disciples  and  offered  them, 
as  a  last  legacy,  His  peace :  "Peace  I  leave  with  you; 
my  peace  I  give  unto  you."  That  which  He  pos 
sessed  He  was  able  to  bestow.  The  peace  of  recon 
ciliation  with  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  peace  of  conscious  fellowship  with  God  re 
sulting  from  a  living  union  with  Christ  the  Savior, 
I  claim  as  mine  this  Passion  Week. 

The  Cross  has  been  mentioned  only  incidentally  in 
all  the  poems  from  which  I  have  quoted  up  to  this 
time.  I  now  turn  to  one  of  which  it  is  the  theme. 
This  one  is  called  "The  Christ,"  and  consists  of  only 
eight  lines  with  a  single  rhyme  throughout,  as  fol 
lows: 

"'Father!'  (so  The  Word)  He  cried,-* 
'Son  of  Thine,  and  yet  denied; 
By  my  brothers  dragged  and  tried, 
Scoffed  and  scourged,  and  crucified, 
With  a  thief  on  either  side — 
Brothers  mine,  alike  belied, 
Arms  of  mercy  open  wide, 
Father !   Father !'    So  He  died." 


154      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Nimbly  do  we  follow  this  pointing  of  the  guide- 
board  of  the  Cross,  for  three  times  in  the  eight  lines 
of  this  poem  is  the  word  "Father"  used.  In  His 
speech  and  in  His  life  Christ  was  constantly  trying 
to  make  men  understand  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 
But  it  is  in  His  death  that  we  reach  the  very  sun- 
kissed  summit  of  His  mountain  revelation  of  God. 
When  men  ask  me  how  I  can  believe  that  God  is 
good  in  spite  of  all  the  stress  and  strife  and  strug 
gle  and  bloodshed  in  this  cruel  old  world  of  ours,  my 
answer  always  is  couched  in  one  word:  "Jesus!" 
His  sensitive  soul  felt  the  jar  and  jangle  and  discord 
as  I  can  never  feel  it.  He  saw  suffering  innocence, 
and  Himself,  being  innocent,  was 

".   .   .   dragged  and  tried, 
Scoffed  and  scourged,  and  crucified," 

yet  He  knew  that  love  lived  in  it  all,  even  as  the  rain 
bow  lives  in  the  rain,  and 

"'Father!   Father!'    So  He  died." 

This  also  is  the  crowning  revelation  of  the  love  of 
God ;  for,  as  Saint  Paul  says,  "God  commendeth  His 
own  love  toward  us,  in  that  Christ  died  for  us." 

So  ends  Riley's  doctrine  concerning  the  Cross. 
Not  very  much,  is  it?  And  yet,  what  more  is  there 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      155 

to  be  said  ?  He  has  preached  no  doctrine  of  finality 
concerning  the  full  meaning  of  the  Cross — and  no 
man  can  do  that.  Some  people  have  insisted  on 
analyzing  the  Cross  until  they  have  made  infidels  by 
the  thousands ;  they  seem  not  to  know,  that  some 
things  have  to  be  felt.  And  some  others  have,  with 
their  "clear  views,"  hacked  the  Cross  into  splinters. 
But,  oh,  the  Cross  is  God's  heart!  We  bend  our  in 
tellects  in  lowliest  reverence  and  worship  before  it; 
we  accept  its  inspiration,  we  feel  its  passion,  we  lay 
our  aching  lives  upon  its  infinite  mystery,  and  find 
blessed  rest  and  peace.  We  thank  God  for  the  old, 
old  truth  which  Riley  expresses  in  his  quaint, 
homely  way : 

"Christ 'died  fer  you.'" 


CHAPTER  VII 

SIN 

GREAT  literature  deals  with  great  themes.  As 
nothing  can  be  greater  in  the  annals  of  bat 
tles  than  Waterloo  or  the  Marne,  so  nothing  can  fur 
nish  a  greater  theme  for  masters  in  literature  than 
the  defeat  of  humanity;  and  humanity's  Waterloo 
is  sin.  Sin  opens  wide  to  our  gaze  the  ruin  of  man ; 
and,  beholding  the  ruin,  we  get  an  idea  of  his  great 
ness.  Sin  reveals  the  highest  and  deepest  relations 
of  human  life.  Sin  gives  birth  to  tragedy,  and  trag 
edy  holds  evermore  the  unwavering  gaze  of  man 
kind.  And  since  sin  is  the  greatest  theme,  the  great 
writers  always  gravitate  to  it.  You  hear  the  wail  of 
this  disaster  through  all  the  writings  of  Sophocles. 
Juvenal's  caustic  satire  discloses  the  festering  sore 
of  Roman  life.  Shakespeare  and  Goethe  could  find 
no  theme  adequate  to  their  genius  but  sin.  Dante 
built  his  Inferno  upon  it.  Milton  could  not  justify 
his  genius,  except  as  he  dealt  with  "Man's  first  dis 
obedience."  The  art  of  Hawthorne  and  Hugo  and 

156 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      157 

George  Eliot  deals  fundamentally  with  this  haunt 
ing  mystery  of  the  human  soul.  All  literature  that 
is  profoundly  true  pays  attention  to  this  deep  reality. 
The  reason  why  great  poets,  novelists  and  drama 
tists  always  strike  down  into  the  sinfulness  of 
man  to  find  material  for  an  ever-young  appeal  is  be 
cause  the  moral' judgment  of  men  recognizes  man  as 
a  sinful  being.  There  is  a  general  and  deep-rooted 
feeling  that  man  is  failing  to  fulfill  his  destiny.  If 
this  is  true  in  general,  it  is  intensified  manyfold 
when  it  becomes  personal.  Conscience  is  always 
alarming  us  about  sin.  Even  when  the  individual 
laughs  at  the  Church's  earnestness  about  it,  and 
smilingly  speaks  of  his  own  sin  as  a  sort  of  imma 
turity  or  huge  joke,  still  his  conscience  condemns 
his  wrong  deeds  and  the  character  from  which  the 
wrong  deeds  spring.  This  is  the  teaching  of  Riley's 
poem  "We  Are  Not  Always  Glad  When  We  Smile." 
Though  we  may  deceive  the  world  into  believing 
that  we  could  not  laugh  in  a  happier  way,  yet  down 
in  the  depths  of  the  soul  there  is  an  ache  and  a  moan 
that  no  one  knows  of  save  ourselves.  And  as  the 
rainbow  may  live  in  the  rain,  so  also  there  may  be 
a  smile  in  the  eyes  while  a  tempest  of  pain  rages  in 
the  heart.  But  the  inaudible,  accusing  voice  of  con- 


158      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

science  convinces  us  that  while  we  may  hide  our  sin 
from  the  knowledge  of  our  fellows,  yet  it  is  plain 
in  the  sight  of  the  Lord.  Therefore,  the  poem  con 
cludes  with  these  words: 

"We  are  not  always  glad  when  we  smile ! — 
But  the  conscience  is  quick  to  record, 
All  the  sorrow  and  sin 
We  are  hiding  within 
Is  plain  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord : 
And  ever,  O  ever,  till  pride 
And  evasion  shall  cease  to  defile 
The  sacred  recess 
Of  the  soul,  we  confess 
We  are  not  always  glad  when  we  smile." 

This  common  moral  judgment  of  men  which  con 
veys  a  positive  implication  as  to  the  general  sinful- 
ness  finds  expression  through  many  mediums. 
Philosophy  has  always  grappled  it  with  ungloved 
earnestness.  The  religions  of  the  world  have  all  be 
held  it  as  a  black  cloud;  and  because  no  Sun  of 
Righteousness  has  risen  upon  their  horizon  with 
healing  in  his  beams  sufficient  to  scatter  the  cloud, 
it  has  not  only  interposed  itself  between  them  and 
heaven,  but  has  also  cast  a  dark,  dank  shadow  over 
the  earth.  The  governments  of  mankind  unite  in 
testifying  that  sin  is  an  ancient  and  ever-present 
fact.  Experience  has  taught  them  that  they  must 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      159 

reckon  on  the  commission  of  crime,  and  they  have 
provided  penalties  and  created  reformatory  institu 
tions  accordingly. 

Observations  by  any  one,  anywhere,  anytime,  will 
confirm  this  verdict  handed  down  by  the  common 
moral  judgment  of  men.  In  "A  Song  of  the  New 
Year,"  James  Whitcomb  Riley  expresses  the  convic 
tion  that  sin  is  the  implacable  foe  of  peace.  He  says 
that  as  he  listened  to  the  bells  at  midnight  ring  in 
the  New  Year,  above  the  clanging  chorus  he  seemed 
to  hear  a  band  of  angels  singing : 

'"Ring  out  the  shame  and  sorrow, 

And  the  misery  and  sin, 
That  the  dawning  of  the  morrow 

May  in  peace  be  ushered  in.' " 

And  thinking  of  the  trials  of  the  departed  years,  and 
of  the  pleasures  and  hopes  that  had  blossomed  but 
now  were  withered  and  dead,  he  lifted  his  eyes  to 
ward  Heaven;  and  while  he  prayed  with  trembling 
lips  he  received  assurance  that  if  sin  and  shame  were 
rung  out,  the  New  Year  would  be  ushered  in  in 
peace: 

"And  like  a  ghost  of  music 

Slowly  whispered — lowly  sung— 

Came  the  echo  pure  and  holy 
In  the  happy  angel  tongue : 


*Ring  out  the  shame  and  sorrow, 

And  the  misery  and  sin, 
And  the  dawn  of  every  morrow 

Will  in  peace  be  ushered  in.' " 

Riley  is  right  again.  It  is  sin  that  banishes  peace, 
and  fills  the  world  with  wars  and  bloodshed,  and 
causes  the  history  of  mankind  to  be  written  as  it 
were  with  the  point  of  the  sword  rather  than  with 
the  point  of  the  pen.  It  is  sin  that  is  the  cause  of 
injustice,  inequality,  oppression  and  "man's  inhu 
manity  to  man.'*  It  is  sin  that  withers  youthhood 
and  maidenhood.  It  is  sin  that  breaks  up  former 
happy  homes,  and  tramples  God's  holy  thoughts  of 
fraternity  into  the  mire  of  hell. 

But 

"Sinners  allus  suffers  some," 

as  Riley  says  in  his  quaint,  homely  style  in  his  rather 
long  and  subtly  humorous  dialect  poem,  "Fessler's 
Bees." 

"Sinners  allus  suffers  some, 
And  old  Fessler's  reck'nin'  cornel 
That-air  man  to-day  is  jes' 
Like  the  grass  'at  Scriptur*  says 
Cometh  up,  and  then  turns  in 
And  jes'  gits  cut  down  ag'inl" 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      161 

That  poem  has  humor  in  it,  but  not  those  six  lines. 
They  are  too  tragically  true  to  be  funny.  Sinners 
must  be  warned.  God  is  not  to  be  mocked.  We 
shall  reap  what  we  sow.  In  the  order  which  God 
has  established,  penalty  for  wrong-doing  is  self- 
executing.  It  is  natural  for  retribution  to  follow 
sin.  Both  the  nature  of  man  and  the  world,  as  well 
as  the  Holy  Scriptures  emphasize  and  re-emphasize 
the  doctrine  that  God  has  appointed  various  evils 
for  the  sinner  to  follow  his  sin. 

"Sinners  allus  suffers  some." 

Sometimes  the  penalty  is  so  apparent  to  the  world 
that  it  resembles 

".    .    .   the  grass  'at  Scriptur'  says 
Cometh  up,  and  then  turns  in 
And  jes'  gits  cut  down  ag'in." 

But  with  all  the  sense  of  guilt,  the  condemnation  of 
conscience,  remorse,  is  by  no  means  the  least  ele 
ment  in  penalty  that  follows  in  the  wake  of  sin.  It 
may  be  that  the  sinner  is  too  shallow,  or  his  heart 
too  hardened,  to  permit  of  the  presence  of  remorse 
as  an  element  in  his  punishment  for  sin.  Never 
theless  that  it  is  normal  for  man  to  pronounce 


162      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

judgment  upon  his  own  conduct,  and  for  the  wilful 
sinner  to  be  "dogged  by  that  blood-hound  Remorse- 
fulness,"  is  the  plain  teaching  of  that  interesting 
narrative  poem  of  Riley's  entitled  "George  Mullen's 
Confession,"  a  poem  so  full  of  pathos  that  you  can 
squeeze  the  tears  out  of  it  with  one  hand.  Our  poet 
makes  George  Mullen  start  his  confession  by  saying : 

"For  the  sake  of  guilty  conscience,  and  the  heart  that  ticks  the 

time 

Of  the  clockworks  of  my  nature,  I  desire  to  say  that  I'm 
A  weak  and  sinful  creature,  as  regards  my  daily  walk 
The  last  five  years  and  better." 

And  he  goes  on  to  say  that  he  always  was  hard,  and 
full  of  pride,  and  "onry,"  and  stiff,  and  stubborn, 
and  had  an  awful  temper.  But  he  fell  in  love  with 
a  dear  gentle  girl,  who  in  a  marvelous  way  tamed 
the  wild  animal  of  his  nature.  When  he  asked  her 
to  marry  him,  her  parents  strenuously  objected,  on 
the  ground  that  he  was  not  their  idea  of  a  son-in- 
law.  But  when,  in  intense  anger,  he  started  away 
from  their  home,  the  daughter,  his  sweetheart,  went 
with  him,  though  her  father  yelled  like  a  madman 
that  henceforth  she  was  no  child  of  his.  They  lived 
happily  together  for  some  months  and  years,  and 
their  happiness  was  intensified  when  little  Grace 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      163 

came  to  brighten  their  home  with  her  winning  ways 
and  sweet  baby  language. 

Then  one  day  his  wife's  father  wrote  her  a  mes 
sage,  and  all  that  he  said  in  it  was :  "Annie  Mullen, 
come  and  see  your  mother  die."  In  his  "Confes 
sion,"  George  says : 

"I  saw  the  slur  intended — why  I  fancied  I  could  see 
The  old  man  shoot  that  insult  like  a  poison  dart  at  me ; 
And  in  that  heat  of  passion  I  swore  an  inward  oath 
That  if  Annie  pleased  her  father  she  could  never  please  us 
both. 

"I  watched  her — dark  and  sullen — as  she  hurried  on  her 
shawl ; 

I  watched  her — calm  and  cruel,  though  I  saw  her  tear-drops 
fall; 

I  watched  her — cold  and  heartless,  though  I  heard  her  moan 
ing  call 

For  mercy  from  high  Heaven — and  I  smiled  throughout  it  all. 

*rWhy  even  when  she  kissed  me,  and  her  tears  were  on  my 

brow, 
As  she  murmured,  'George,  forgive  me — I  must  go  to  mother 

now!' 

Such  hate  there  was  within  me  that  I  answered  not  at  all, 
But  calm,  and  cold  and  cruel,  I  smiled  throughout  it  all." 

But  when  little  Grace  came  and  kissed  him  good- 
by,  and  told  him  to  kiss  her  "Muwer"  too,  he  sort 
of  relented.  Yet  when  they  had  driven  away,  and 


164      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

he  was  left  alone  to  ponder  that  last  insult  the  old 
man  had  given  him,  he  mouthed  his  wrongs 

"Till  the  wild  beast  in  my  nature  was  raging  in  the  den — 
With  no  one  now  to  quell  it,  and  I  wrote  a  letter  then 
Full  of  hissing  things,  and  heated  with  so  hot  a  heat  of  hate 
That  my  pen  flashed  out  black  lightning  at  a  most  terrific  rate. 

"I  wrote  that  'she  had  wronged  me  when  she  went  away  from. 

me — 

Though  to  see  her  dying  mother  'twas  her  father's  victory, 
And  a  woman  that  could  waver  when  her  husband's  pride  was 

rent 
Was  no  longer  worthy  of  it.'  And  I  shut  the  house  and  went" 

He  had  an  awful  exile.  He  wandered  to  California, 
and  lived  a  wild  and  vicious  life.  He  wandered 
over  trackless  plains  and  mountains,  and  suffered 
tortures  at  the  hands  of  Indians.  He  says : 

"I  could  tell  of  gloomy  forests  howling  wild  with  threats  of 

death; 
I  could  tell  of  fiery  deserts  that  have  scorched  me  with  their 

breath ; 
I  could  tell  of  wretched  outcasts  by  the  hundreds,  great  and 

small, 
And  could  claim  the  nasty  honor  of  the  greatest  of  them  alL 

"I  could  tell  of  toil  and  hardship ;  and  of  sickness  and  disease, 
And  hollow-eyed  starvation,  but  I  tell  you,  friend,  that  these 
Are  trifles  in  comparison  with  what  a  fellow  feels 
With  that  bloodhound,  Remorsefulness,  forever  at  his  heels." 

Truly  life  is  hell  when  conscience  gives  place  to 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      165 

remorse.  Riley  rightly  calls  it  a  "blood-hound." 
The  great  Luther  once  described  it  as  "a  barking 
hell-hound,  a  monster  vomiting  fire,  a  raging  fury, 
a  tormenting  devil." 

Riley  has  an  eery  poem  that  he  calls  "The  Lost 
Kiss"  in  which  he  represents  a  poet  so  absorbed  in 
his  writing  that  one  day  when  his  dear  little  girl 
came  romping  to  him  for  a  kiss, 

"Come  rowdying  up  from  her  mother, 
And  clamoring  there  at  my  knee 

For  'One  'ittle  kiss   for  my  dolly, 
And  one  'ittle  uzzer  for  me !' " 

he  impatiently  scolded  her,  and  sent  her  away.  Time 
passes,  but  he  can  not  forget.  He  stops  a  half-writ 
ten  poem  to  pray : 

"God,  pity  the  heart  that  repelled  her, 

And  the  cold  hand  that  turned  her  away, 
And  take,  from  the  lips  that  denied  her, 

This  answerless  prayer  of  to-day ! 
Take,  Lord,  from  my  mem'ry  forever 

That  pitiful  sob  of  despair, 
And  the  patter  and  trip  of  the  little  bare  feet, 

And  the  one  piercing  cry  on  the  stair  1" 

O  the  inaudible  accusing  voice  of  conscience !  O 
the  face  drenched  with  a  pitiless  storm  of  tears  or 
flushed  with  shame  when  no  one  is  near  to  see !  O 


166      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

the  bitter  memories  of  the  past!  Cain  heard  the 
blood  of  Abel  crying  from  the  earth,  and  though 
no  criminal  law  threatened  death  to  murderers,  yet 
his  guilty  conscience  told  him  that  men  would  like 
to  kill  him  if  they  could.  In  his  rugged  Hoosier 
style  Mr.  Riley  has  written  a  poem  which  he  calls 
"My  Conscience."  It  is  permeated  with  a  delicious 
whimsical  humor,  but  is  absolutely  true  psychology : 

"Sometimes  my  Conscience  says,  says  he, 

'Don't  you  know  me?' 

And  I,  says  I,  skeered  through  and  through, 

'Of  course  I  do. 

You  air  a  nice  chap  ever*  way, 

I'm  here  to  say! 

You  make  me  cry — you  make  me  pray, 

And  all  them  good  things  thataway — 

That  is,  at  night.    Where  do  you  stay 

Durin'  the  day?' 

"And  then  my  Conscience  says,  onc't  more, 

*You  know  me — shore?' 

'Oh,  yes,'  says  I,  a-trimblin'  faint, 

'You're  jes'  a  saint! 

Your  ways  is  all  so  holy-right, 

I  love  you  better  ever'  night 

You  come  around, — tel  plum  daylight, 

When  you  air  out  o'  sight !' 

"And  then  my  Conscience  sort  o'  grits 
His  teeth,  and  spits 
On  his  hands  and  grabs,  of  course, 
Some  old  remorse, 


THE  FAiTif  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      167, 

And  beats  me  with  the  big  butt-end 
O'  that  thing — tel  my  clostest  friend 
'Ud  hardly  know  me.    'Now,'  says  he, 
'Be  keerful  as  you'd  orto  be 
And  allus  think  o'  me !' " 

.Who  of  us  has  not  gone  through  precisely  that  ex 
perience  ?  Have  we  not  been  remorseful  in  the  dark 
night,  and  forgetful  of  our  vows  in  the  daylight? 
And  have  we  not  seen  Conscience  spit  on  his  hands, 
grit  his  teeth,  and  grab  up  some  old  remorse  with 
which  to  club  us? 

But  the  most  serious  element  in  penalty  for  sin  is 
the  fact  that  God  knows  and  cares  and  disapproves. 
God  is  unalterably  opposed  to  sin.  The  sinner 

"Insults  his  God," 

as  Riley  puts  it  in  that  bloodcurdling  description  of 
"An  Assassin" : 

"Catlike  he  creeps  along  where  ways  are  dim, 

From  covert  unto  covert's  secrecy; 
His  shadow  in  the  moonlight  shrinks  from  him 

And  crouches  warily. 

He  hugs  strange  envies  to  his  breast,  and  nurses 
Wild  hatreds,  till  the  murderous  hand  he  grips 

Falls,  quivering  with  the  tension  of  the  curses 
He  launches  from  his  lips. 


168      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Drenched  in  his  victim's  blood  he  holds  high  revel ; 

He  mocks  at  justice,  and  in  all  men's  eyes 
Insults  his  God — and  no  one  but  the  devil 

Is  sorry  when  he  dies." 

There  is  the  natural  history  of  sin:  the  microbe 
of  sin  is  harbored  in  the  heart  before  it  breaks  out 
in  the  deed  of  the  hand.  Murder  is  traced  back  to 
it's  birthplace ;  the  heart  that  hugs  strange  envies  and 
nurses  wild  hatreds.  And  when  his  devilish  deed  is 
done,  bad  as  it  all  is,  the  worst  thing  about  it  is 
that  he 

"Insults  his  God." 

Sometimes  God's  opposition  to  sin  is  spoken  of  as 
"indignation,"  "wrath,"  "hatred."  But  we  must  be 
careful  not  to  invest  them  with  the  meaning  which 
we  give  them  when  we  use  them  to  describe  our 
human  passion.  For  while  God  hates  sin  He  still 
loves  the  sinner,  and  yearns  to  save  him.  In  His 
disapproving  love  there  is  a  grief,  a  sadness,  a  heart 
break.  Thus  in  "The  Vision  of  Rabbi  Ben  Isaac" 
which  our  poet  records,  when  he  became  alarmed  at 
the  stain  of  self-righteousness  which  he  beholds 
upon  his  spirit  as  it  approaches  Heaven,  he  calls  out 
for  it  to  return  to  him : 


169 


"  'Not  so.'    It  answered,   as  in   some  surprise — 
'The  angel  Faith  has  whispered  "Look  Above," 

And  shading  with  her  wings  my  dazzled  eyes, 
Points  out  the  angel  Love, 

"  'Who,  weeping,  bends  above  me,  and  her  tears 

Baptize  me,  and  her  sister  Mercy  trips 
Along  the  golden  clouds,  and  Christ  appears 

With  sorrow  on  His  lips.'" 

Oh  yes,  dear  poet,  that  is  it :  Divine  love  is  wounded, 
weeping.  Christ  is  sorrow-stricken  when  souls  go 
astray.  And  surely  there  is  no  greater  element  in 
the  punishment  that  comes  upon  the  sinner  than  the 
disapproval  of  the  God  of  Love. 

There. is  still  another  element  in  penalty  for  sin: 
and  that  is  that  there  are  sufferings  and  losses  which 
follow  the  sinner  even  after  God  has  forgiven  his 
sin.  This  is  a  lesson  which  our  age  needs  to  learn. 
The  prodigal  son  went  into  the  far  country,  and 
spent  his  substance  in  riotous  living,  and  when  he 
came  back  his  father  freely  forgave  him.  But  that 
prodigal  son  left  with  the  swine  in  the  far  country 
some  of  the  richest  and  highest  possibilities  of  his 
life — and  he  never  possessed  them  again.  God  will 
pardon  all  transgression  and  will  cleanse  from  all 
sin;  but  He  does  not  suspend  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect,  of  seed  and  harvest.  "He  that  soweth  to  the 


170      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption."  For  ex 
ample,  witness  the  life  of  Luther  Benson,  the  fa 
mous  temperance  orator.  He  was  greatly  admired  by 
James  Whitcomb  Riley,  who  after  reading  his  auto 
biography,  wrote  a  poem  on  his  life.  And  though 
he  rejoices  that  his  sins  are  now  forgiven  and  a 
strength  divine  encircles  him,  yet  since  he  had  squan 
dered  so  much  of  his  life  and  usefulness  in  drunken 
ness,  Mr.  Riley  speaks  of  him  as  a 

"Poor  victim  of  that  vulture  curse 
That  hovers  o'er  the  universe, 
With  ready  talons  quick  to  strike 
In  every  human  heart  alike, 
And  cruel  beak  to  stab  and  tear 
In  virtue's  vitals  everywhere." 

His  iniquity  has  been  forgiven,  yet  our  poet  says 
that  looking  through  the  open  door  of  his  sad  life  he 
can  see  only  a  broad  landscape  of  misery;  he  sees 
the  ruins  of  his  younger  years ;  he  sees  the  father's 
shielding  arm  struck  down.  He  goes  on  with  the 

sad  recital : 

"I  see  a  happy  home  grow  dark 
And  desolate — the  latest  spark 
Of  hope  is  passing  in  eclipse — 
The  prayer  upon  a  mother's  lips 
Has  fallen  with  her  latest  breath 
In  ashes  on  the  lips  of  death." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      171 

And  no  amount  of  agonizing  prayer  can  ever  re 
cover  those  wasted  years  and  that  heart-broken 
mother.  We  must  tell  our  generation  that  the  man 
who  is  away  from  God  for  a  single  year  or  a  single 
day  must  suffer  an  irreparable  loss.  How  much  bet 
ter  it  would  have  been  for  Luther  Benson  and  for  all 
drunkards  had  they  heeded  the  words  of  the  Scrip 
ture:  "Wine  is  a  mocker,"  and  if  they  had  allowed 
it  to  "stagnate  in  the  bowl"  as  Riley  sang  in  that 
very  early  poem  of  his,  "Job  Work,"  when  he  was 
asked  to  "write  a  rhyme  of  the  present  time,"  and 
among  other  things  he 

".   .   .   sang  the  joy  that  a  noble  boy 

Brings  to  a  father's  soul, 
Who  lets  the  wine  as  a  mocker  shine 

Stagnated  in  the  bowl." 

There  is  another  poem  which  he  calls  "A  Simple 
Recipe,"  showing  how  "the  right  kind  of  a  man  can 
be  made  out  of  the  right  kind  of  a  boy,"  which  con 
tains  this  straightforward  exhortation  to  clean  liv 
ing  and  strict  obedience  to  conscience : 

"Be  clean — outside  and  in,  and  sweep 
Both  hearth  and  heart  and  hold  them  bright ; 

Wear  snowy  linen — aye,  and  keep 
Your  conscience  snowy-white." 


172      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

The  fact  which  gives  to  the  idea  of  sin  its  most 
terrible  significance  is  the  tendency  to  permanence 
in  its  issues.  There  is  a  cumulative  effect  of  sin  in 
any  sinning  man  or  woman.  There  is  a  progression 
in  sinfulness  as  there  is  in  holiness.  There  is  an  in 
creasing  hardness  of  heart  and  an  increasing  dead- 
ness  of  conscience.  And  the  awfully  alarming  thing 
about  it  is  that  by  continued  unwillingness  to  walk 
in  the  way  of  God  the  sinner  may  bring  himself  into 
that  spiritual  attitude,  that  fixed  and  permanent  and 
final  condition  of  soul  where  a  change  in  his  manner 
of  life  is  impossible,  because  by  his  own  choice  he 
has  made  repentance  impossible.  But  all  sin,  as 
such,  necessarily  involves  the  idea  of  suffering  to  the 
person  who  commits  it;  hence  punishment,  or  suf 
fering,  as  the  natural  consequence  of  selfishness, 
must  exist  as  long  as  sin  exists.  Unless  the  grace  of 
God,  which  is  the  only  power  effective  in  the  over 
throw  of  sin,  is  allowed  to  operate,  punishment  for 
sin  will  continue  beyond  the  grave.  That  there  will 
be  a  judgment  in  which  each  one  will  stand  on  his 
own  personality  and  must  answer  to  his  own  deeds 
is  the  thought  which  is  set  forth  in  Riley's  "His 
Mother,"  where  a  mother  is  wailing  for  her  boy 
whom  she  charges  the  "Law"  with  having  killed. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      173 

Declaring  that  God  did  not  apologize  when  He  gave 
the  boy  to  her,  she  warns  those  to  whom  she  is  talk 
ing  to  prepare  for  God's  verdict  at  the  final  judg 
ment: 

"Simply,  I  make  ready  now 
For  His  verdict. — You  prepare — 

You  have  killed  us  both — and  how 
Will  you  face  us  There?" 

But  suppose  a  man  repents  of  his  sin,  as  the  prod 
igal  son  did  of  his — that  is,  he  becomes  conscious  of 
sin,  is  heartily  sorry  for  it,  is  conscious  of  better 
things,  forms  a  resolution  of  repentance,  abandons 
his  life  of  sin,  returns  to  God,  confesses  to  Him 
without  palliation  and  unreservedly  consecrates  him 
self  to  His  service — what  then?  Suppose  he  offers 
Riley's  "A  Mortul  Prayer" : 

"Oh !  with  the  hand  that  tames  the  flood 

And  smooths  the  storm  to  rest, 
Make  ba'mmy  dews  of  all  the  blood 

That  stormeth  in  my  brest, 
And  so  refresh  my  hart  to  bud 

And  bloom  the  loveliest. 
Lull  all  the  clammer  of  my  soul 

To  silunce;  bring  release 
Unto  the  brane  still  in  controle 

Of  doubts ;  bid  sin  to  cease, 
And  let  the  waves  of  pashun  roll 

And  kiss  the  shores  of  peace." 


174      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Will  God  give  heed  to  that  repentance  and  to  that 
"Mortul  Prayer"?  Yes,  thank  God.  He  will.  A 
little  while  ago  we  quoted  from  Riley's  poem  on 
Luther  Benson,  showing  the  havoc  wrought  by  sin ; 
but  we  did  not  quote  it  all.  Through  the  poet's  eyes 
let  us  see  the  end : 

"I  see  a  penitent  who  reels, 

And  writhes,  and  clasps  his  hands,  and  kneels, 

And  moans  for  mercy  for  the  sake 

Of  that  fond  heart  he  dared  to  break. 

"And  lo !  as  when  in  Galilee 
A  voice  above  the  troubled  sea 
Commanded  "Peace;  be  still!"  the  flood 
That  rolled  in  tempest-waves  of  blood 
Within  you,  fell  in  calm  so  sweet 
It  ripples  round  the  Saviour's  feet: 
And  all  your  noble  nature  thrilled 
With  brightest  hope  and  faith,  and  filled 
Your  thirsty  soul  with  joy  and  peace 
And  praise  to  Him  who  gave  release." 

Yes,  yes;  it  is  Christ  who  gives  release.  Sin 
makes  the  fellowship  with  God  for  which  we  were 
created  impossible.  It  does  not  change  God ;  but  it 
alters  the  relationship  which  exists  between  Him 
and  us.  But  God  stands  ready  to  forgive  us  when 
ever  in  true  repentance  we  seek  His  forgiveness.  He 
does  not  absolutely  wipe  out  the  effects  and  results 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      175 

of  sin  in  the  human  life ;  but  He  does  deliver  the  sin 
ner  from  having  his  destiny  decided  by  his  guilt ;  He 
lifts  the  burden  from  the  sinner's  conscience;  He  re 
moves  the  condemnation,  and  gives  the  sinner  a  new 
start  in  life  under  His  own  blessed  influence.  In 
"The  Rainy  Morning"  Riley  describes  a  dreary 
morning,  with  weeping  clouds,  and  sighing  winds, 
and  writhing  leaves.  And  then  he  tells  how,  as  he 
stood  bowed  in  a  shower  of  tear  drops,  the  splendor 
of  the  sun  bent  over  him,  and  his  tears,  like  the  rain 
of  morning,  melted  in  mists  of  light.  The  whole 
poem  is  beautiful;  but  to  my  mind  the  stanza  which 
originally  concluded  it  is  the  best  of  all ;  for  in  it 
he  says : 

"I  do  not  know  that  the  sermon 

Was  meant  for  me  alone, 
Tho'  it  seemed  to  me  God  spoke  it 

In  the  faintest  undertone. 
Yet  this  I  know:  when  the  spirit 

Is  draped  in  the  gloom  of  sin, 
That  only  the  hand  of  the  Master 

Can  let  the  sunshine  in." 

Sin  like  a  black  cloud  shuts  the  light  of  God's  free 
grace  out  of  man's  life ;  but  forgiveness  banishes  the 
cloud,  and  opens  to  the  sinner  the  free  action  of 
God's  grace. 


176      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"Only  the  hand  of  the  Master 
Can  let  the  sunshine  in." 

When  our  conscience  has  aroused  us,  and  clubbed 
us,  and  "that  bloodhound,  Remorse  fulness,"  has 
dogged  us,  and  we  have  been  alarmed  with  the 
tragical  consequences  of  sin,  and  especially  so  since 
we  have  "insulted  God,"  and  our  "spirit  is  draped  in 
the  gloom  of  sin,"  and  we  have  grown  weak  trying 
to  find  a  way  out  of  sin  to  salvation,  and  then  we 
learn  that  the  Cross  of  Christ  points  the  way,  how 
jubilantly  do  we  take  up  "The  Chant  of  the  Cross- 
Bearing  Child"  (one  of  our  bard's  few  negro 
dialect  poems)  : 

"I's  nigh  Tbout  weak  ez  I  mos'  kin  be, 
Yit  de  Marstah  call  an'  He  say, — 'You's  free 
Fo'  ter  'cept  dis  cross,  an'  ter  cringe  yo'  knee 
To  no  n'er  man  in  de  worl'  but  Me !' " 

Since  we  are  free  to  accept  the  Cross,  and  with  it 
salvation,  joyfully  do  we  accept  it,  and  with  deep 
contrition  do  we  pray  the  opening  line  in  "Kneeling 
with  Herrick" : 

"Dear  Lord,  to  Thee  my  knee  is  bent." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RILEY'S  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY:   AN  EASTER 
MEDITATION 

"TTF  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?"  is  the  way  an 
J|  ancient  poet  expressed  the  question  that  pounds 
with  an  insistency  and  a  persistency  at  more  human 
hearts  than  any  other  question  ever  asked.  It  is  the 
preacher's  most  popular  theme.  When  I  was  pastor 
of  Sewickley  Church  a  few  years  ago,  I  submitted  to 
the  morning  and  evening  congregations  one  Sunday 
a  list  of  ten  subjects  for  sermons,  covering  a  wide 
range  of  interest;  one  was  the  alliterative  slogan  of 
the  Sewickley  Board  of  Trade,  "Sewickley,  Start 
Something" — that  was  sensational,  at  least  latently 
so;  another  was  "The  Uses  of  Money" — that  was 
practical ;  another  was  Dante's  "Divine  Comedy" — 
that  was  cultural ;  another  was  "What  Do  We  Mean 
by  Conversion?" — that  was  doctrinal.  These  are 
only  samples.  There  were  ten  subjects  given  and 
unostentatiously  mixed  in  with  the  others  was  the 

177 


178      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

question  of  Job:  "If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?" 
The  people  were  instructed  to  mark  the  five  in  which 
they  were  most  interested.  The  membership  of  the 
church  then  numbered  nearly  a  thousand.  It  was 
the  last  Sunday  of  May.  The  attendance  was  excel 
lent.  The  congregation  included  all  kinds  of  people ; 
young  and  old,  rich  and  poor,  educated  and  unedu 
cated.  The  referendum  vote  was  scattered  over  the 
whole  ten  subjects.  The  one  receiving  the  smallest 
vote  was,  "John  Knox,  the  Reformer,"  securing 
only  twenty-one  per  cent,  of  the  votes  cast.  They 
ranged  from  that  over  nine  of  the  subjects  up  to 
the  "Amusement  Question,"  which  got  sixty-nine 
per  cent,  of  the  votes — the  largest  of  all  with  one 
single  exception.  And  that  exception  was,  "If  a 
man  die,  shall  he  live  again?"  seventy-six  out  of  ev 
ery  hundred  people  declaring  more  interest  in  that 
than  in  any  other  question  asked. 

That  congregation  is  typical  of  the  human  race. 
Does  death  end  all?  Shall  we  see  our  loved  ones 
again?  Eternity  comes  on;  after  death,  what? 
These  are  ubiquitous,  irrepressible  questions.  Death 
compels  man  to  think  of  what  follows,  for  it  will 
not  leave  man  alone.  Sooner  or  later  each  one  feels 
that  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  in  his  "Lines  on  the 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      179 

Death  of  Little  Mahala  Ashcraft,"  has  given  expres 
sion  to  the  sorrow  we  feel  when  the  grim  messen 
ger  has  invaded  our  home : 

'"Little  Haly!    Little  Haly!'  cheeps  the  robin  in  the  tree; 
'Little  Haly !'  sighs  the  clover,  'Little  Haly !'  moans  the  bee ; 
'Little  Haly !   Little  Haly !'  calls  the  killdeer  at  twilight ; 
And  the  katydids  and  crickets  hollers  'Haly !'  all  the  night." 

And  so  it  sobs  through  the  whole  of  this  irresistible 
elegy.  The  sorrowing  pulse  of  nature  bids  the  poet 
voice  his  emotion,  and  ours,  in  accordant  rhythm. 
The  result  is  an  exquisite  blending  of  the  homespun 
phrase  and  the  lyric  feeling,  possessed  of  a  simple 
directness  approaching  the  feeling  of  Greek  poetry. 
For  the  delicacy  and  sentiment  of  Riley  perfectly 
match  the  naturalness  and  charm  of  the  honey- 
lipped  Theocritus.  Why?  Because  nothing  human 
is  alien  to  Riley.  His  humanity  is  not  modeled  after 
the  fashion-plate  standards;  it  is  spacious,  robust, 
somewhat  Elizabethan. 

But  not  only  does  he  give  voice  to  humanity's 
sorrow  at  the  havoc  wrought  by  death.  He  changes 
Job's  question  into  an  affirmation,  and  sings  of  the 
immortal  life  beyond  the  grave.  Take  that  rather 
long  narrative  poem,  "He  Called  Her  In."  It  is  a 
story  of  sustained  interest  which  our  gentle  Hoosier 


180      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

poet  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a  motherless  little  girl, 
sad,  dark,  eery.  He  makes  her  say  that  one  day 
while  she  was  lying 

".   .   .   shut  all  alone  in  grasses  high, 

Looking  straight  up  in  God's  great  lonesome  sky 

And  coaxing  Mother  to  smile  back  on  me," 

another  little  girl  also  motherless,  came  out  from  a 
near-by  pleasant-seeming  home,  and  by  winsome 
sweetness  won  her  confidence  and  love : 

"At  once  I  loved  her  as  the  leaves  love  dew 
In  midmost  summer  when   the  days   are  new." 

They  played  together  in  perfect  happiness,  mingling 
as  the  shine  and  shade, 

".  .   .   till  a  harsh  voice  broke  upon 

Our  happiness.   She,  startled  as  a  fawn, 

Cried,   'Oh,  'tis  Father!'  all  the  blossoms  gone 

From  out  her  cheeks  as  those  from  out  her  grasp. — • 

Harsher  the  voice  came : — She  could  only  gasp 

Affrightedly,  'Good-by  I — good-by !  good-by !' " 

And  the  little  girl  stood  alone,  with  wet  eyes,  repeat 
ing  over  and  over : 

**  *He  called  her  in  from  me  and  shut  the  door !' " 

She  was  so  very  lonely.  She  thought  that  "no  little 
sallow  star,  alone  in  all  a  world  of  twilight,  e'er  had 
known  such  utter  loneliness." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       181 

"  'He  called  her  in  from  me  and  shut  the  door !' " 

Then  one  day  she  went  out  again  among  the  green 
grasses,  and  gathered  up  and  kissed  the  blossoms 
that  her  little  friend  had  tossed  aside.  Creeping  up 
to  her  home,  she  saw  no  sign  of  her,  nor  heard  her 
rippling  laugh;  but  she  found  the  window-blinds 
drawn,  and  caught 

"A  sound  as  though  a  strong  man  bowed  his  head 

And  sobbed  alone — unloved — uncomforted! — 

And  then  straightway  before 

My  tearless  eyes,  all  vividly,  was  wrought 

A  vision  that  is  with  me  evermore : — 

A  little  girl  that  lies  asleep,  nor  hears 

Nor  heeds  not  any  voice  nor  fall  of  tears. — ; 

And  I  sit  singing  o'er  and  o'er  and  o'er, 

'God  called  her  in  from  him  and  shut  the  door  P  " 

So  ends  this  narrative  poem — a  story  in  which  we 
discern  the  image  of  a  heightened  and  intenser 
world.  Is  it  not  the  interpretation  of  experience? 

Not  unlike  this  poem  is  the  one  which  Mr.  Riley 
wrote  upon  the  sudden  death  of  "Little  Marjorie," 
the  four-year-old  daughter  of  his  friend,  William 
C.  Bobbs.  "Where  is  little  Marjorie?"  is  the  sor 
row-laden  question  which  our  bard  hears  in  the 
robin's  call,  and  the  bluebird's  note,  and  the  soft  syl 
lables  of  her  old  playmate,  the  rain,  on  the  window- 


182      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

pane,  and  the  spring  voices  everywhere :  "Where  is 
little  Marjorie?"    And  he  answers  with  confidence: 

"Oh,  in  high  security 
She  is  hidden  from  the  reach 
Of  all  voices  that  beseech : 
She  is  where  no  troubled  word, 
Sob  or  sigh  is  ever  heard, 
Since  God  whispered  tenderly — • 
'Where  is  little  Marjorie?"' 

Once  Mr.  Riley  saw  in  the  New  York  Sun  a  poem 
of  three  verses,  entitled,  "Doubt,"  by  an  unknown 
author.  In  imitation  of  its  style,  and  in  reply  to  its 
skepticism,  he  wrote  one  entitled,  "Faith,"  which  is 
as  follows: 

"The  sea  was  breaking  at  my  feet, 
And  looking  out  across  the  tide, 

Where  placid  waves  and  heaven  meet, 
I  thought  me  of  the  Other  Side, 

"For  on  the  beach  on  which  I  stood 
Were  wastes  of  sand,  and  wash,  and  roar, 

Low  clouds,  and  gloom,  and  solitude, 
And  wrecks  and  ruins — nothing  more, 

"'O,  tell  me  if  beyond  the  sea 
A  heavenly  port  there  is !'  I  cried, 

And  back  the  echoes  laughingly 
'There  is !  there  is  I*  replied." 

When  Myron  W.  Reed,  a  well-known  preacher, 
died,  his  intimate  friend,  James  Whitcomb  Riley, 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      183 

subtly  characterized  his  life,  and  affirmed  his  own 
faith,  in  "The  Onward  Trail,"  the  final  stanza  of 
which  reads : 

"So,  never  parting  word  or  cry : — 
We  feel,  with  him,  that  by  and  by 
Our  onward  trails  will  meet  and  then 
Merge  and  be  ever  one  again." 

The  same  thought  is  expressed  in  the  beautiful 
sonnet  which  Mr.  Riley  wrote  on  the  passing  of  his 
"master-friend,"  the  famous  artist,  Samuel  Rich 
ards,  who  died  "At  His  Wintry  Tent"  (Denver, 
Colorado).  The  closing  lines  describe  the  artist 
thus  : 

"The  laughing  light  of  faith  still  in  his  eye 
As,  at  his  wintry  tent,  pitched  at  the  end 
Of  life,  he  gaily  called  to  me,  'Good  night, 

Old  friend,  good  night — for  there  is  no  good-by.' " 

I  remember  once,  after  I  had  delivered  my  lec 
ture-recital  on  "James  Whitcomb  Riley,  the  Typical 
American  Poet  of  This  Generation,"  before  the 
Pittsburgh  preachers'  meeting,  one  of  the  ministers 
said  to  me :  "When  my  son  met  his  tragic  and  un 
timely  death  the  one  thing  outside  the  Bible  that 
brought  most  comfort  to  my  broken  heart  was  James 
Whitcomb  Riley's  poem,  'Away.'  "  Let  me  quote  it 


184      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

in  full  here.  It  may  bring  comfort  to  other 
ones: 

"I  can  not  say,  and  I  will  not  say 
That  he  is  dead. — He  is  just  away! 

"With  a  cheery  smile,  and  a  wave  of  the  hand, 
He   has    wandered    into    an   unknown    land, 

"And  left  us  dreaming  how  very  fair 

It   needs   must   be,    since   he   lingers   there. 

"And  you — O  you,   who   the   wildest  yearn 
For  the  old-time  step  and  glad  return, — 

"Think  of  him  faring  on,  as  dear 

In  the  love  of  There  as  the  love  of  Here; 

"And  loyal  still,  as  he  gave  the  blows 

Of  his  warrior-strength  to  his  country's  foesj — 

"Mild  and  gentle,  as  he  was  brave, — 

When  the  sweetest  love  of  his  life  he  gave 

"To  simple  things : — where  the  violets  grew 
Blue  as  the  eyes  they  were  likened  to, 

"The  touches   of  his   hands  have  strayed 
As  reverently  as  his  lips  have  prayed : 

"When  the  little  brown  thrush  that  harshly  chirred 
Was  dear  to  him  as  the  mocking-bird; 

"And  he  pitied  as  much  as  a  man  in  pain 
A  writhing  honey-bee  wet  with  rain. 

"Think  of  him  still  as  the  same,  I  say: 
He  is  not  dead — he  is  just  away!" 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      185 

What  a  rich  union  of  mellow  thought  and  melodious 
verse  that  is ! 

Though  these  poems  embody  what  Mr.  Riley  has 
thought  and  felt,  yet  he  speaks  for  us  all.  His  poetry 
finds  us  because  it  phrases  what  we  have  ourselves 
perceived  and  felt.  He  expresses  the  universal  be 
cause  the  universal  is  within  him. 

While  he  was  still  in  his  twenties — and  a  sign- 
painter — James  Whitcomb  Riley  wrote  "Our  Little 
Girl."  According  to  the  "Notes"  at  the  end  of  the 
volume  of  his  Complete  Works  (edited  by  Ed 
mund  Henry  Eitel),  the  inspiration  of  this  poem 
was  the  following  notice  which  appeared  in  The 
Hancock  Democrat: 

"Died — Minnie,  infant  daughter  of  William  and 
Catherine  Crider,  Tuesday,  Dec.  5,  1876,  at  Frank 
lin,  Ind.  In  her  last  moments  she  said :  'O,  Dod,  I 
tan't  stan'  dis.' " 

It  consists  of  three  stanzas.    The  first  one  reads  as 
follows : 

"Her  heart  knew  naught  of  sorrow 

Nor  the  vaguest  taint  of  sin — 
'Twas  an  ever-blooming  blossom 

Of  the  purity  within; 
And  her  hands  knew  only  touches 

Of  the  mother's  gentle  care, 
And  the  kisses  and  caresses 

Through  the  interludes  of  prayer." 


186      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

As  the  poem  now  stands,  Mr.  Riley  has  written  an 
entirely  new  final  stanza  for  it.  But  I  like  the  one 
which  originally  closed  it,  and  which  fits  in  with  our 
theme  so  well,  that  I  am  going  to  give  it  to  you  here : 

"And   yet   she    failed    and    faltered; 

And  though  tears  are  in  our  eyes, 
We  smile  to  think  her  spirit 

Went  lisping  to  the  skies ; 
For  we  know — in  Christ  believing — 

Lips  are  ripest  for  His  kiss, 
When  in  simplest  faith  they  murmur, 

'O,  Dod,  I  tan't  stan'  dis.' " 

[That  is  good  reasoning.  It  is  sound  philosophy  to 
say  that  man's  innate  sense  of  justice,  set  over 
against  the  sufferings,  the  cruelties,  the  inequalities, 
the  injustice  of  this  present  life,  argues  strongly  for 
immortality.  Man  so  emphatically  loves  justice  that 
he  can  have  no  doubt  concerning  the  justice  of  God. 
Indeed  we  can  not  hold  a  true  conception  of  God 
without  thinking  of  Him  as  just.  Another  life  is 
demanded  that  the  unjustness  of  this  life  may  be 
straightened  out.  The  innocent  little  child,  whose 
heart  had  never  known  "the  vaguest  taint  of  sin," 
suffered  so  much  that  she  told  God  she  could  not 
stand  it.  But 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      187; 

".   .   .   we  know — in  Christ  believing — 

Lips  are  ripest  for  His  kiss, 
When  in  simplest  faith  they  murmur, 

'Oh,  Dod,  I  tan't  stan'  dis.' " 

The  same  thought  concludes  "The  Happy  Little 
Cripple."  I  shall  not  take  the  space  here  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  poem  for — well,  everybody  has  read 
that  exquisitely  cunning  blend  of  wit  and  pathos  and 
philosophy.  But  the  little  cripple,  who  has  had  such 
a  hard  time  here  on  earth,  closes  his  speech  by  talk 
ing  about  Heaven : 

"  'Cause  all  the  little  childerns  there's  so  straight  an'  strong 

an*  fine, 
They's  nary  angel  *bout  the   place   with   'Curv'ture   of   the 

Spine!'" 

Mr.  Riley's  verses  have  such  a  universality  of  ap 
peal  that  we  can  hardly  think  of  their  having  been 
written  to  fit  some  individual  case.  "Little  David" 
was  a  crippled  boy  with  big  ambitions  who  lived 
next  door  to  our  poet  in  Lockerbie  Street,  Indian 
apolis.  When  the  brave  little  fellow  was  gone,  Mr. 
Riley  wrote  to  his  mother  the  following  lines : 

"The  mother  of  the  little  boy  that  sleeps 
Has  blest  assurance,  even  as  she  weeps : 
She  knows  her  little  boy  now  has  no  pain — 
No  further  ache,  in  body,  heart  or  brain ; 


188      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

All  sorrow  is  lulled  for  him — all  distress 
Passed  into  utter  peace  and  restfulness. — 
All  health  that  heretofore  has  been  denied 
All  happiness,  all  hope,  and  all  beside 
Of  childish  longing,  now  he  clasps  and  keeps 
In  voiceless  joy — the  little  boy  that  sleeps." 

Though  God  is  just,  how  great  the  injustice  and 
inequality  of  this  world !  Lowell  spoke  about  truth 
being  forever  on  the  scaffold  and  wrong  forever  on 
the  throne.  There  is  far  more  than  mere  poetry  in 
Lowell's  lines.  Too  often  truth  is  on  the  scaffold, 
or  is  crushed  to  earth ;  and  though  another  poet  says 
"Truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise  again,"  yet  many 
people  have  waited  a  whole  lifetime  and  have  not 
seen  her  rise.  Many  a  time  we  see  Vice  riding  along 
empurpled  thoroughfares  of  royalty  in  a  limousine 
while  Virtue,  footsore  and  ragged,  tramps  the  dusty 
highways  of  life.  It  is  only  a  belief  in  an  eternity 
where  justice  shall  triumph  over  injustice  and  where 
inequalities  shall  be  straightened  out  that  makes  this 
present  life  endurable. 

^This  is  "A  Life  Lesson,"  which  Mr.  Riley  fain 
would  teach  us.  He  assures  the  little  girl  whose 
doll,  and  tea-set,  and  playhouses  have  been  broken 
that  "childish  troubles  will  soon  pass  by."  And  the 
schoolgirl,  whose  slate  has  been  broken,  and  whose 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      189 

glad  wild  ways  are  gone  he  promises  that  "life  and 
love  will  soon  come  by."  And  then  the  final  en 
couragement  : 

"There !  little  girl,  don't  cry ! 
They  have  broken  your  heart,  I  know ; 

And  the  rainbow  gleams 

Of  your  youthful  dreams 
Are  things  of  the  long  ago; 

But  heaven  holds  all  for  which  you  sigh — 

There !  little  girl ;  don't  cry !" 

Upon  the  death  of  T.  C.  Philips,  "an  editor  of 
state-wide  name  and  influence,"  Mr.  Riley  composed 
a  sonnet,  in  which  he  praised  the  noble  and  unselfish 
work  which  his  venerable  friend  had  done,  opposing 
Wrong  and  cheering  Right,  yet  always  concealing 
his  own  inward  agony, 

"Until  the  Master,  leaning  from  His  throne, 
Heard   some   soul  wailing  in   an   undertone, 

And  bending  lower  down,  discovered  thee, 
And  clasped  thy  weary  hand  within  His  own 

And  lifted  thee  to  rest  eternally." 

When  Katie  Beecher,  "a  bright  and  promising 
child,"  died,  Mr.  Riley  was  moved  to  write 

"Over  the  eyes  of  gladness 
The  lids  of  sorrow   fall," 

in  which  he  depicted  the  sorrow  of  the  parents  on 


account  of  their  loss.  Katie  was  one  of  twin  daugh 
ters.  See  how  our  poet's  unfathomable  pathos,  and 
brotherly  pity,  and  spontaneous  sympathy  express 
themselves  here  : 

"Two  buds  on  the  bough  in  the  morning—     • 

Twin  buds  in  the  smiling  sun, 
But  the  frost  of  death  has  fallen 

And  blighted  the  bloom  of  one. 

"One  leaf  of  life  still  folded 

Has  fallen  from  the  stem, 
Leaving  the  symbol  teaching 

There  still  are  two  of 


"For  though  —  through  Time's  gradations, 

The  living  bud  may  burst,—  -s 
The  withered  one  is  gathered, 

And  blooms  in  Heaven  first." 

How  often,  oh,  how  often  "the  frost  of  death" 
blights  the  bloom  of  life!  But  Riley  teaches  that 
the  blighted  bud  shall  bloom  in  Heaven.  That  is 
sound  philosophy.  Another  world  is  needed  to 
bring  man's  imperfections  to  perfection,  and  his  in 
completeness  to  completion.  We  feel  that  we  are 
just  beginning  to  live  when  it  is  time  to  die.  The 
thinker  has  not  got  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
profound  problems  that  have  engaged  his  attention. 
statesman  has  not  done  a  tithe  of  the  construe- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      191 

tive  work  for  human  brotherhood  that  he  longs  to 
do.  The  scholar  has  not  given  expression  to  a  thou 
sandth  part  of  the  thoughts  that  surge  within  him 
like  the  booming  of  the  midnight  sea  upon  the  rocks. 
The  artist  feels  that  the  paintings  he  has  produced 
are  only  the  prophecy  of  what  he  could  do  if  he  had 
the  time  for  the  development  of  the  powers  within 
him.  The  prophet  still  has  his  eye  on  the  future, 
and  yearns  like  the  mighty  ocean  tide  to  bring  his 
message  to  mankind,  when  the  "frost  of  death"  falls 
on  him.  The  saint  keeps  struggling  up  the  steep 
mountain  of  goodness,  and  struggling  up,  and  strug 
gling  up,  and  no  matter  how  good  he  may  be  when 
the  sun  of  his  life's  day  is  set,  he  still  sees  far  above 
his  reach  the  snow-white  peak  of  holiness  of  char 
acter  which  his  feet  have  never  scaled.  But, 

"The  -withered  one  is  gathered, 
And  blooms  in  Heaven  first" 

Mr.  Riley  was  a  great  admirer  of  John  Boyle 
O'Reilly,  and  on  his  death  exclaimed : 

"Dead?  this  peerless  man  of  men — 
Patriot,  Poet,  Citizen! 
Dead?  and  ye  weep  where  he  lies 
Mute,  with  folded  eyes!" 


192      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Further  on  in  the  poem  he  answers  his  own  ques 
tion: 

"  'Tis  promotion  that  has  come 
Thus  upon  him.   Stricken  dumb 
Be  your  meanings  dolorous  1 
God  knows  what  he  does." 

Eight  years  later,  when  writing  on  the  passing  of 
Claude  Matthews,  he  again  voices  this  idea  of  death 
as  a  promotion : 

"Faith  sees  him  raised  still  higher,  through  our  tears, 
By  this  divine  promotion  of  his  death." 

I  like  that!  Only  promoted!  What  a  kindling 
thought  it  is !  It  calls  out  the  noblest,  holiest  activi 
ties  of  which  we  are  capable.  It  infuses  new  mo 
tives  into  all  our  work.  It  exalts  our  thoughts, 
strengthens  our  wills,  wings  our  imaginations,  re 
fines  our  judgments.  It  widens  the  horizon  of  our 
sympathies,  and  concentrates  our  purposes.  It  fires 
our  ambitions  and  stimulates  us  to  project  more  co 
lossal  enterprises.  It  makes  us  more  pure,  more 
patient,  more  powerful,  more  peaceful.  It  engen 
ders  generosity  but  not  selfishness ;  love  but  not  lust ; 
tenderness  but  not  touchiness.  It  soothes  the  sor 
rowing  spirit  and  inflames  the  flagging  ener,gies.  It 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       193 

teaches  us  that  perfection  is  the  end  of  persistent 
personal  life.     Only  promoted! 

One  more  stanza  shall  I  quote  in  this  connection — 
the  last  one  in  the  poem  Mr.  Riley  wrote  when  he 
lost  to  sight  his  choice  friend,  Charles  H.  Philips. 
The  stanza  carries  to  a  still  higher  level  the  thought 
I  have  been  developing  here : 

"So   even    thou  hast  gained 

The  victory  God-given — 
Yea,  as  our  cheeks  are  stained 
With  tears,  and  our  souls  pained 
And  mute,  thou  has  attained 

Thy  high  reward  in  Heaven." 

James  Whitcomb  Riley  has  learned  the  secret  of 
endearing  himself  to  a  wider  range  of  American 
humanity  than  any  other  American  poet.  He  is  es 
sentially  the  poet  laureate  of  our  common  life. 
Though  he  is  best  known  as  the  master  who  sub 
dued  the  Hoosier  dialect  to  music,  yet,  as  has  been 
seen  in  many  of  the  quotations  in  this  study,  he  has 
written  many  poems  in  literary  English  which  reveal 
a  subtle  insight  and  generous  sympathy.  They  are 
never  commonplace  nor  uninspired,  but  spirited  and 
full  of  the  sap  of  life.  He  has  woven  some  pieces  of 


194      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

iridescent  word-work,  following  the  pattern  made 
visible  to  his  inward  eye,  over  which  a  Tennyson  or 
a  Browning  would  have  felt  a  thrill  of  joy.  One 
which  is  a  perfect  gem,  both  in  substance  and  style, 
is  that  "Hymn  Exultant"  of  the  lyric  mood,  written 
"for  Easter."  It  is  as  follows  : 

"Voice  of  Mankind,  sing  over  land  and  sea — 

Sing,  in  this  glorious  morn ! 
The  long,  long  night  is  gone  from  Calvary — 

The  cross,  the  thong  and  thorn ; 
The  sealed  tomb  yields  up  its  saintly  guest, 
No  longer  to  be  burdened  and  oppressed. 

"Heart  of  Mankind,  thrill  answer  to  His  own, 

So  human,  yet  divine  I 
For  earthly  love  He  left  His  heavenly  throne, 

For  love  like  thine  and  mine — 
For  love  of  us,  as  one  might  kiss  a  bride, 
His  lifted  lips  touched  death's,  all  satisfied. 

"Soul  of  Mankind,  He  wakes — He  lives  once  more ! 

O  soul,  with  heart  and  voice 
Sing !  sing ! — the  stone  rolls  chorus  from  the  door — 

Our  Lord  stands  forth. — Rejoice! 
Rejoice,  O  garden-land  of  song  and  flowers; 
Our  King  returns  to  us,  forever  ours  1" 

There  is  the  final  argument  for  the  doctrine  of 
immortality.  Jesus  said  there  was  a  life  beyond  the 
grave.  He  declared  His  own  resurrection,  and  He 


FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      195 

made  good  the  prophecy.  I  remember  when  I  was 
a  student  in  the  University  of  Chicago  Divinity 
School,  Dean  Shailer  Matthews  one  day  said  before 
the  class :  "The  resurrection  of  Jesus  is  a  fact  dem 
onstrated  by  science."  One  of  the  students  knit  his 
eyebrows,  and  took  exception  to  the  Dean's  word 
(and  the  Dean,  by  the  way,  had  no  special  ambition 
to  be  counted  orthodox) .  But  in  reply,  Doctor  Mat 
thews  said,  in  effect:  "I  do  not  mean  that  it  is 
proved  by  the  science  of  chemistry,  for  chemistry 
has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  it.  I  do  not  mean  that 
it  is  proved  by  the  science  of  biology,  for  it  is  not  a 
biological  question.  But  I  do  insist  that  the  resur 
rection  of  Jesus  has  been  demonstrated  by  the  only 
science  that  has  aught  to  do  with  it,  that  is,  the 
science  of  history !"  And  he  was  right 

Take  the  testimony  of  Saint  Paul,  indisputable, 
compact,  convincing.  I  shall  not  take  up  the  space 
here  by  transcribing  it;  read  it  for  yourself  in  the 
first  letter  he  wrote  to  the  Corinthians,  the  fifteenth 
chapter.  Or  take  the  fact  of  the  Church ;  it  has  been 
built  on  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  from  the  dead. 
Or  consider  the  fact  that  the  apostles  rather  than 
to  deny  the  resurrection  were  willing  to  suffer  the 
most  excruciating  torture  and  die  the  most  igno- 


196      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

minious  death.  Or  look  at  the  historic  fact  of  a 
change  in  the  day  of  rest  and  worship;  once  it  was 
the  seventh  day,  then  something  happened  to  change 
it,  all  of  a  sudden,  to  the  first  day.  Peter  of  Alex 
andria  (A.  D.  300)  sums  it  all  up  when  he  says: 
"We  keep  the  Lord's  Day  as  a  day  of  joy  because  of 
Him  who  rose  thereon."  The  resurrection  of  Jesus 
holds  as  large  a  place  in  the  Christian  creed  as  the 
creation  of  the  world  out  of  nothing  held  in  the 
Jewish  belief.  To  the  Jew  the  Sabbath  commem 
orated  deliverance  from  Egyptian  bondage.  To  the 
Christian  Sunday  commemorates  deliverance  from 
the  bondage  of  sin  and  death.  Thus  every  week  has 
its  Easter.  And  Easter  is  the  last  historical  fact  I 
shall  mention,  for  something  happened  on  a  spring 
Sunday  about  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  to  cause 
a  group  of  people  to  celebrate  the  day  iri  succeeding 
years.  As  a  hymn  is  sung  by  a  great  outdoor  con 
gregation,  first  those  around  the  leader  singing  it, 
and  then  others  taking  it  up  farther  out,  and  on, 
until  the  whole  grove  resounds  with  its  melody,  so 
the  Easter  "Hymn  Exultant"  was  sung  first  in  Pal 
estine  of  Judea  by  a  few;  then  others  joined  in;  then 
it  leaped  across  the  Hellespont,  and  reverberated 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET       197 

through  Asia  Minor;  then  it  sung  its  way  around 
the  Mediterranean  Sea;  then  it  became  the  march 
ing  anthem  to  which  civilization  kept  step;  soon  its 
swelling  breath  filled  the  sails  of  ships  and  drove 
them  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  And  if  one  could 
have  been  carried  on  the  wings  of  the  morning  this 
springtime  he  would  have  seen  five  hundred  and 
fifty  millions  of  people  celebrating  this  Easter — that 
reaches  in  an  unbroken  line  from  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus.  Why?  Because 

"The  sealed  tomb  yields  up  its  saintly  guest, 
No  longer  to  be  burdened  and  oppressed." 

"Soul  of  Mankind,  He  wakes — He  lives  once  more ! 

O  soul,  with  heart  and  voice 
Sing  t  sing ! — the  stone  rolls  chorus  from  the  door — 

Our  Lord  stands  forth. — Rejoice  I 
Rejoice,  O  garden-land  of  song  and  flowers; 
Our  King  returns  to  us,  forever  ours!" 

Blessed  relief!  glorious  joy!  inestimable  triumph! 
What  Cicero  called  "a  mere  conjecture"  is  made  to 
us  an  assured  fact,  a  blessed  divine  reality  by  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead. 

Here  is  the  answer  to  humanity's  quest  for  "The 
Beautiful  City"  of  which  Riley  speaks.  How  mu 
sical  his  verse,  and  as  true  as  musical : 


198      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"The   Beautiful    City!     Forever 

Its    rapturous    praises    resound; 
We  fain  would  behold  it — but  never 

A  glimpse  of  its  glory  is  found ; 
i,     We  slacken  our  lips   at  the  tender 

White  breasts  of  our  mothers  to  hear 
Of  its  marvelous  beauty  and  splendor ; — • 

We  see — but  the  gleam  of  a  tear  1" 

And  then  he  goes  on  to  tell  us  how  we  never  grow 
tired  of  the  story  that  has  been  common  to  all  na 
tions  "from  the  earliest  lisp  of  the  world."  He  re 
cords  our  search  everywhere  for  the  Beautiful  City 
— but  it  constantly  evades  us.  We  lean  from  the 
mountain,  looking  for  it,  only  to  have  our  vision 
blurred  by  the  dust  of  earth.  We  lean  from  the 
mast,  only  to  have  the  glare  of  the  ocean  blur  our 
brain.  "We  kneel  in  dim  fanes,"  but  the  tumul 
tuous  roll  of  the  organ  dies  away,  and  looking  aloft 
our  eyes  reach  only  "where  the  painter  has  dabbled 
a  saint  overhead."  Must  our  quest  always  be  in 
vain?  Nay;  listen  to  the  sure  confidence  of  our 
poet,  based  on  the  resurrection  of  Jesus : 

"The  Beautiful  City!     O  mortal, 
Fare  hopefully  on  in  thy  quest, 

Pass  down  through  the  green  grassy  portal 
That  leads  to  the  Valley  of  Rest; 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      199 

There  first  passed  the  One  who,  in  pity 
Of  all  thy  great  yearning,  awaits 

To  point  out   the  Beautiful   City, 
And  loosen  the  trump  at  the  gates." 

That  is  why  Easter  is  the  second  birthday  of  the 
human  race.  It  is  the  birthday  of  hope  in  the  human 
heart.  For  the  opened  tomb  in  the  Garden  has  be 
come  the  telescope  through  which  we  behold  the 
Elysian  fields  of  our  God. 

Therefore,  as  our  poet  said  when  his  old  teacher 
and  friend,  Captain  Lee  O.  Harris,  died,  so  we  also 
say  concerning  our  departed  loved  one : 

"O  say  not  he  is  dead, 

The  friend  we  honored  so; 
Lift  up  a  grateful  voice  instead 

And  say :  He  lives,  we  know — 
We  know  it  by  the  light 

Of  his  enduring  love 
Of  honor,  valor,  truth  and  right, 

And  man,  and  God  above." 

"What  will  Heaven  be  like?"  is  an  ever-recurring 
question.  Mr.  Riley  once  wrote  in  prose  as  follows : 

"Of  course,  one  can  speculate  as  to  what  Heaven 
will  be  like.  It  doesn't  do  any  harm  to  speculate 
upon  the  sort  of  place  that  Heaven  will  be  and  the 
sort  of  life  that  is  lived  there.  The  field  isn't  limited 


200      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

— you  can  imagine  that  anything  can  take  place 
there ;  anything,  anything !" 

Jesus  has  made  one  thing  certain,  namely,  that 
the  natural  craving  of  our  heart  shall  be  realized  in 
Heaven ;  for  when  He  was  talking  to  His  disciples, 
about  gathering  them  into  the  Father's  house  of 
many  mansions,  He  said :  "If  it  were  not  so,  I  would 
have  told  you."  How  many  questions  that  simple 
statement  answers!  Will  it  be  like  home?  Home 
at  its  best?  when  the  children  "gathered  home"  for 
Christmas.  Therefore  Riley  recalls  "Them  old 
cheery  words"  that 

"Pap  he  allus  ust  to  say, 
'Chris'mus  comes  but  onc't  a  year!'* 

And   the  poem   ends   by  telling  how   "Pap"   has 
crossed  over  to  the  better  land,  and 

"Allus  Chris'mus  There. — And  here 
'Chris'mus  comes  but  onc't  a  year !' " 

In  "Last  Words"  our  poet  assures  us  that : 

"The  sun  that  cheers  our  pathway  here 
Shall  beam  upon  us  there." 

That  is  a  thoroughly  satisfying  promise;  for  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  proclaims  not  simply  that  we 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      201 

pass  into  another  life,  but  that  that  life  transcends 
this  life  as  light  transcends  gloom.  When  immor 
tality  was  bestowed  upon  Achilles  he  sighed  again 
for  earth.  But  Jesus  Christ  has  made  it  "gain" 
to  die. 

That  is  why  Riley  in  the  climax  of  his  lines  "On  a 
Dead  Babe,"  exclaims  in  his  familiar  Hoosier  style  : 

"I  can  not  weep  f  er  thee." 

Why?  Because,  as  he  tells  us  in  that  other  sweet 
little  poem,  "Baby's  Dying" : 

"Baby's  dying, 
Do  not  stir — 

Let  her  pure   life   lightly   swim 
Through  the  sighing 
Lips  of  her — 

Out  from  us  and  up  to  Him." 

That  is  emphatically  one  of  the  differences  the  com 
ing  of  Christ  has  made.  The  pagan  world  always 
believed  in  immortality,  and  sometimes  seems  to 
have  had  a  vague  notion  that  ultimately  it  should 
come  into  the  presence  of  the  gods.  But  the  change 
wrought  by  Christ  makes  immortality  become  ulti 
mate  oneness  with  God  even  as  Christ  is  one.  The 
saved  shall  see  Christ  face  to  face — as  Riley  puts  it 
in  the  closing  stanza  of  "When  Bessie  Died".: 


202      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"We  writhed  in  prayer  unsatisfied; 
We  begged  of  God,  and  He  did  smile 
In  silence  on  us  all  the  while; 
And  we  did  see  Him,  through  our  tears, 
Enfolding   that    fair    form   of    hers, 
She  laughing  back  against  His  love 
The  kisses  we  had  nothing  of." 

O  that  all  bereaved  parents  might,  with  the  eye  of 
faith,  be  able  to  see  their  own  little  children  that 
they  have  lost  to  sight  so  enfolded! 

There  is  one  other  question  that  people  ask  every 
time  they  talk  of  the  Better  Country,  and  that  is: 
"Shall  we  know  each  other  there?"  Well,  let  us 
see :  do  you  want  to  know  your  loved  ones  ?  Is  that 
what  your  heart  craves?  Then  again  I  invoke  the 
word  of  Jesus:  "If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have 
told  you."  Mr.  Riley  seems  to  entertain  no  doubt 
about  it.  In  that  mellifluous  poem  of  his,  "Out  of 
the  Hitherwhere,"  he  speaks  of  recognizing  his 
friends  and  embracing  his  mother  and  laughing 
again  with  his  old  schoolmates.  Let  me  quote  the 
first  two  stanzas : 

"Out  of  the  hitherwhere  into  the  Yon 
The   land    that   the   Lord's    love    rests    upon; 
Where  one  may  rely  on  the  friends  he  meets, 
And  the  smiles  that  greet  him  along  the  streets; 


203 


Where  the  mother  that  left  you  years  ago 
Will  lift  the  hands  that  were   folded  so, 
And  put  them   about  you,   with  all  the  love 
And  tenderness  you  are  dreaming  of. 

"Out  of  the  hitherwhere  into  the  Yon — 

Where  all  of  the  friends  of  your  youth  have  gone, — 

Where  the  old  schoolmate  that  laughed  with  you, 

Will  laugh  again  as  he  used  to  do, 

Running  to  meet  you,  with  such  a  face 

As  lights  like  a  moon  the  wondrous  place 

Where  God  is  living,  and  glad  to  live, 

Since  He  is  the  Master  and  may  forgive." 

That  is  another  difference  which  the  resurrection 
of  Christ  has  made;  in  pre-Christian  literature  we 
can  read  how  some  Ulysses  in  the  dim  woods  of 
Hades  recognizes  the  pale  shades  of  heroes.  But 
now  immortality  means  that  the  faces  of  those  we 
have  loved  long1  since  and  lost  a  while  shall  smile 
again ;  that  the  family  is  immortal  as  well  as  the  in 
dividual. 

"Look  up !  and  own,  in  gratefulness  of  prayer, 
Submission  to  the  will  of  Heaven's  High  Host: — 

I  see  your  Angel-soldier  pacing  there, 
Expectant  at  his  post," 

said  Mr.  Riley  in  his  long  poem  on  "The  Silent  Vic 
tors,"  which  he  read  at  the  Decoration  Day  exercises 


204      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

at  Newcastle,  Indiana,  eleven  years  after  the  close 
of  our  Civil  War.    In  "Out  of  Reach"  he  says: 

"You  think  them  'out  of  reach,'  your  dead? 

Nay,  by  my  own  dead,  I  deny 
Your  'out  of  reach.' — Be  comforted: 

'Tis  not  so  far  to  die. 

"O  by  their   dear   remembered   smiles 
And  outheld  hands  and  welcoming  speech, 

They  wait  for  us,  thousands  of  miles 
This  side  of  'out  of  reach.' " 

And  now,  because  I  steadfastly  believe  that  "if  a 
man  die,  he  shall  live  again,"  I  close  this  meditation 
with  the  expression  of  a  holy  resolve  which  James 
Whitcomb  Riley  puts  into  the  mouth  of  "Tomps"  in 
"His  Mother's  Way" : 

"Tomps  'ud  allus  haf  to  say 
Somepin'  Tjout  Tiis  Mother's  way.'" — 

That  seemed  to  dominate  his  life,  and: 

"Propped  up  on  his  dyin'  bed,—1 
'Shore  as  Heaven's  overhead, 
I'm  a-goin'  there,'  he  said — • 
'It  was  Mother's  way.' " 


CHAPTER  IX 
PRACTICAL  RELIGION  :  HUMBLE  SERVICE 

IN  his  poem  entitled  "My  Philosofy,"  Riley  de 
clared 

"No  man  is  grate  tel  he  can   see 
How    less    than    little   he    would   be 
Ef  stripped  to  self,  and  stark  and  bare 
He  hung  his  sign  out  anywhare." 

In  this  instance  his  "Philosophy"  squares  with  that 
of  other  great  thinkers.  Confucius  once  said :  "Hu 
mility  is  the  solid  foundation  of  all  the  virtues." 
John  Ruskin  said :  "I  believe  that  the  first  test  of  a 
truly  great  man  is  humility."  Whittier  felt  that 

"The  Lord's  best  interpreters 
Are  humble  human  souls." 

Jesus  Himself  once  gave  an  example  of  true  great 
ness  when  He  washed  the  disciples'  feet.  This  foot- 
washing  was  not  in  the  remotest  sense  of  the  word  a 
religious  ceremony.  It  was  a  custom  of  the  time 
that  when  a  stranger  entered  a  home  his  sandals 
were  laid  off  at  the  door,  and  a  servant,  the  most 

205 


206      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

menial  servant  of  the  household,  was  assigned  the 
task  of  washing  the  dust  and  sand  off  his  feet.  On 
this  particular  occasion,  Jesus  and  His  disciples  had 
entered  into  an  "upper  room"  for  supper.  There 
was  no  servant  there  to  perform  this  ordinary  lowly 
task.  While  they  were  preparing  for  supper,  Jesus 
heard  the  ambitious  disciples  wrangling  among 
themselves  as  to  who  should  be  the  greatest.  Then, 
determining  to  give  them  an  object  lesson,  He  laid 
aside  His  outer  garments,  girded  Himself  with  a 
towel,  filled  a  basin  with  water,  and  stooping  down, 
washed  the  disciples'  feet.  When  He  had  finished, 
He  said :  "If  I,  the  Lord  and  Teacher,  have  washed 
your  feet,  ye  also  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet. 
For  I  have  given  you  an  example."  It  would  be  in 
teresting  to  go  through  the  Gospels  and  pick  out  the 
deeds  of  lowly  service  which  Jesus  performed.  And 
then  to  note  this :  that  His  dignity  suffered  no  abate 
ment  in  the  doing  of  them.  WThy?  Because  He 
was  big  enough  to  do  the  little  task.  It  takes  a  big 
man  to  do  it. 

Humility  is  indeed  proof  of  a  man's  greatness. 
True  moral  greatness  is  as  fragrant  as  the  trailing 
arbutus,  and  like  it  seeks  the  shade.  Humility  is 
not  meanness  of  spirit;  not  cringing;  not  a  low  esti- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      207 

mate  of  one's  powers ;  not  an  expression  worn  on  the 
countenance;  not  inverted  pride;  not  self-depreciat 
ing  speech.  It  is  a  form  and  spirit  of  activity.  It  is 
willingness  to  serve.  It  is  the  key  to  the  highest 
service.  It  brings  high  thoughts  down  to  intense 
work  in  the  depths.  It  gives  service  its  true  dignity. 
It  glorifies  all  service.  Humbling  ourselves  to  the 
cross  of  burden-bearing  for  others  leads  to  the  great 
est  usefulness. 

Happy  will  the  world  be  when  all  professed  fol 
lowers  of  the  Man  of  Galilee  overcome  their  bicker 
ings  and  faultfindings  and  petty  rivalries,  and  get 
together  on  the  great  business  of  serving  mankind. 
The  world  will  not  long  misunderstand  such  a  re 
ligion  as  that.  And  that  was  the  kind  for  which  Mr. 
Riley  longed.  One  of  his  very  earliest  poems  he 
entitled  "Job  Work,"  in  which  he  set  "the  poet" 
(himself)  the  task  of  writing  "a  rhyme  of  the  pres 
ent  time."  And  so  he  sang  of  the  Civil  War  that 
had  been  recently  ended,  and  of  home,  and  of 
monopoly's  swift  decay,  and  of  temperance,  but  best 
of  all: 

"He  sang  the  lay  of  religion's  sway, 
Where  a  hundred  creeds  clasp  hands 

And  shout  in  glee  such  a  symphony 
That  the  whole  world  understands." 


208      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"The  Good,  Old-Fashioned  People"  is  a  poem 
written  in  the  child  dialect,  where  the  child  is  speak 
ing  of  the  good  old-fashioned  people  that  Uncle  Sid 
ney  tells  about.  "Uncle  Sidney"  is  Mr.  Riley  him 
self — it  was  the  name  which  his  nephews  and  nieces 
were  wont  to  give  him.  These  good  old-fashioned 
people,  among  other  things,  were  unselfish  and  loved 
their  neighbors  as  themselves : 

"They  was  God's  people,  Uncle  says, 

An'  gloried  in  His  name, 
An'  worked,  without  no  selfishness, 

An'  loved  their  neighbors  same 
As  they  was  kin." 

Truly  such  folks  are  "God's  people" — who  glory 
in  His  name,  and  unselfishly  work  for  others,  loving 
their  neighbors  as  themselves.  In  such  a  spirit  we 
find  the  secret  of  all  human  progress;  in  the  up- 
reach  to  God  and  the  outreach  to  man.  There  is  not 
a  movement  for  the  dignifying  of  manhood  or  the 
sweeting  of  human  life  that  has  not  had  its  inspira 
tion  in  religion.  It  is  a  strange  thing  to  us  of  this 
day,  for  example,  to  read  that  there  ever  was  a  time 
or  section  of  the  country  when  the  institution  of 
human  slavery  was  defended  by  ministers  of  the 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      209 

Gospel,  whose  arguments  were  clinched  by  quota 
tions  from  the  Holy  Word.  And  the  day  will  come 
when  certain  practises  of  to-day  that  are  warmly  de 
fended  by  otherwise  good  people  will  be  just  as 
surely  outlawed  and  considered  as  diametrically  op 
posed  to  Christian  living  as  is  slavery.  The  church 
must  harness  and  direct  the  great  social  movements 
of  this  day ;  for  without  the  goad,  the  spur,  the  push 
of  a  great  spiritual  passion,  all  of  our  modern  fine 
spun  theories  of  social  justice,  economic  righteous 
ness,  and  political  purity  will  fall  to  the  ground. 
Since  the  devotional,  worshiping  spirit  is  the  in 
spiration  of  the  ethical  spirit,  let  the  church  keep 
alive  the  spirit  of  worship.  But  if  it  reaches  up 
toward  God  in  worship,  let  it  not  fail  to  reach  out 
toward  man  in  service.  It  will  not  need  to  hunt 
long  for  texts  for  sermons  on  every  movement  of 
human  betterment.  Thus  in  the  group  of  poems 
called  "A  Child  World"  there  is  a  tale  told  by  "The 
Noted  Traveler,"  who  tells  the  struggle  of  certain 
slaves  escaping  from  the  inferno  of  slavery,  and 
working  weary  years  and  years  to  ransom  their  chil 
dren.  And  when  the  parents  returned  with  their 
oldest  boy  the  happiness  spread  everywhere  until : 


210      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"It  even  reached 

And  thrilled  the  town  till  the  Church  was  stirred 
Into  suspecting  that  wrong  was  wrong! — 
And  it  stayed  awake  as  the  preacher  preached 
A  Real  'Love'-text  that  he  had  not  long 
To  ransack  for  in  the  Holy  Word." 

Riley  is  right  again.  It  is  amazing  what  a  large 
place  love  occupies  in  the  Holy  Word.  The  epitome 
of  the  Gospel  is  this:  "God  so  loved  the  world,  that 
He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  be 
lieve  th  on  Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal 
life."  "God  is  love,"  we  are  told,  and  "Love  is  of 
God."  Jesus  was  love  incarnate,  and  the  Cross  was 
the  crowning  revelation  of  the  love  of  God.  The 
whole  process  of  redemption  is  love  coming  from 
heaven  to  earth  to  create  and  kindle  love,  and  make 
it  triumph  over  human  hearts  and  lives.  That  which 
avails  for  salvation,  we  are  taught,  is  not  rites  and 
ceremonies,  but  "faith  working  through  love."  Love 
is  the  presiding  queen  over  all  the  Christian  graces. 
Love  is  the  prime  fruit  of  the  spirit. 

No  wonder  that  another  of  Riley 's  poems  he  en 
titled  "The  Text,"  and  wrote  the  following  whole 
some  exhortation : 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      211 

"The    text:      Love    thou    thy    fellow    man! 

He  may  have  sinned ; — One  proof  indeed, 
He  is  thy  fellow,  reach  thy  hand 

And  help  him  in  his  need! 

"Love  thou  thy  fellow  man.  He  may 
Have  wronged  thee — then,  the  less  excuse 

Thou    hast    for    wronging    him.      Obey 
What  he  has  dared  refuse! 

"Love  thou  thy  fellow  man — for,  be 

His  life  a  light  or  heavy  load, 
No  less  he  needs  the  love  of  thee 

To  help  him  on  his  road." 

Mere  sham  or  pretense  are  not  tolerated  by  the 
Hoosier  poet.  He  believes  in  prayers,  but  he  be 
lieves  emphatically  that  man  ought  to  work  as  he 
prays;  that  a  man's  life  ought  to  square  with  his 
profession.  His  "As  My  Uncle  Ust  to  Say"  con 
tains  these  emphatic  words,  which  are  as  true  as 
gospel : 

"I've  thought  a  power  on  men  and  things—* 

As  my  uncle  ust  to  say, — 
And  ef  folks  don't  work  as  they  pray,  i  jingsl 

W'y,  they  ain't  no  use  to  pray!" 

It  is  astonishing  how  many  of  our  prayers  we  can 
help  God  to  answer,  if  only  we  "work  as  we  pray." 
Riley's  own  heart-yearning  is  poured  into  "A  Mor- 
tul  Prayer,"  the  final  petition  of  which  is : 


212      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"Make  me  to  love  my  feller  man — • 

Yea,  though  his  bitterness 
Doth  bite  as   only  adders  can—* 

Let  me  the  fault  confess, 
And  go  to  him  and  clasp  his  hand 

And  love  him  none  the  less. 
So  keep  me,  Lord,  ferever  free 

From  vain  concete  er  whim; 
And  he  whose  pius  eyes  can  see 

My  faults,  however  dim,—! 
Oh!  let  him  pray  the  least  fer  me, 

And  me  the  most  fer  him!" 

In  "Ansehno"  the  poet  causes  Father  Anselmo 
(which  is  only  a  characteristic  name,  not  an  historical 
one)  to  speak  of  his  seeking  the  Lord's  grace,  and 
how  hoping  to  please  God  he  practised  the  most 
rigid  asceticism ;  how  he  performed  dread  penance ; 
knelt  with  bleeding  knees;  put  ashes  on  his  head; 
scourged  himself,  and  yet  his  prayers  were  all  in 
vain.  And  then  awakening  from  a  swoon  he  saw  a 
wretched  outcast  bathing  his  brow  with  many  a  pity 
ing  sigh,  and  he  prayed  God's  grace  to  rest  on  this 
outcast,  and  then  he  heard  a  gentle  voice  say : 

"  'Thou  shalt  not  sob  in  suppliance  hereafter ; 
Take  up  thy  prayers  and  wring  them  dry  of  tears, 
And  lift  them,  white  and  pure  with  love  and  laughter.' 

"So  is  it  now  for  all  men  else  I  pray; 
So  is  it  I  am  blest  and  glad  alway." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      213 

What  a  different  world  it  would  be  if  every  Chris 
tian  worked  as  he  prayed.  And  then  suppose  that 
his  constant  prayer  would  be  that  Christ's  will  were 
his  own.  This  is  the  teaching  of  Mr.  Riley  in  the 
child  poem  "A  Defective  Santa  Claus."  He  says 
the  little  child  on  Christmas  eve  knelt  down  by  his 
bed  and  said  the  prayer  that  Uncle  Sidney  taught 
him  to  say  (Uncle  Sidney  was  the  name  that  the 
nephews  and  nieces  gave  to  the  poet).  And  the 
prayer  is  this : 

"O  Father  mine,  e'en  as  Thine  own, 
This  child  looks  up  to  Thee  alone; 
Asleep  or  waking,  give  him  still 
His  Elder  Brother's  wish  and  will." 

He  closed  the  poem  which  he  wrote  upon  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Benjamin  Harrison  with  the  idea  that 
the  supreme  good  is  God's  will,  thus : 

"We  see  her  still, 
Even    as   here   she   stood—: 
All  that  was  pure  and  good 
And  sweet  in  womanhood — 

God's  will  her  will." 

How  shall  we  reach  "The  Highest  Good"?  What 
is  "the  summum  bonum"  of  life?  These  are  ques 
tions  that  are  iterated  and  reiterated  by  weary  mor- 


214      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

tals  every  day  in  quest  of  the  highest  good.  What 
shall  we  do?  If  we  ask  our  poet  he  tells  us  in  simple 
phrase  just  to  do  our  honest  best : 

"To  attain  the  highest  good 
Of  true  man  and  womanhood, 
Simply  do  your  honest  best — 
God  with  joy  will  do  the  rest" 

That  is,  character  is  a  by-product  of  service.  In 
many  of  the  poems  of  our  sweet  singer,  especially 
those  on  persons,  this  thought  is  developed.  Thus 
when  Surgeon  Smith  died,  he  wrote  a  sonnet  which 
he  called  "The  Noblest  Service,"  in  the  center  of 
which  stand  these  two  lines : 

"His  steadfast  step  still  found  the  pathway  toward 
The  noblest  service  paid  Humanity." 

It  was  this  same  devotion  to  the  service  of  Hu 
manity  that  caused  Mr.  Riley  to  write  as  follows 
concerning  John  Brown,  the  famous  abolitionist : 

"Writ  in  between  the  lines  of  his   life-deed 
We  trace  the  sacred  service  of  a  heart 
Answering  the  Divine  command  in  every  part 
Bearing  on  human  weal :     His  love  did   feed 
The  loveless ;  and  his  gentle  hands  did  lead 
The  blind,  and  lift  the  weak,  and  balm  the  smart 
Of  other  wounds  than  rankled  at  the  dart 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      215 

In  his  own  breast,  that  glorified  thus  to  bleed. 
He  served  the  lowliest  first — nay,  then  alone — 
The  most  despised  that  e'er  wreaked  vain  breath 

In  cries  of  suppliance  in  the  reign  whereat 
Red  Guilt  sate  squat  upon  her  spattered  throne. — 
For  these  doomed  there  it  was  he  went  to  death. 
God !  how  the  merest  man  loves  one  like  that  I" 

Certainly  "the  merest  man  loves  one  like  that." 
Always  and  always  such  sacrificial  service  is  the 
highway  to  immortal  renown.  The  man  who  lives 
for  others  (and  here  is  another  by-product  of  un 
selfish  service)  passes  into  an  earthly  immortality  as 
well  as  a  heavenly.  Upon  the  death  of  James  A. 
Mount,  a  farmer  and  an  orator,  and  once  governor 
of  the  state  of  Indiana,  Mr.  Riley  wrote  "A  Good 
Man,"  and  in  this  poem  he  describes  a  good  man  as 
one 

"Who  lives  for  you  and  me — 

Lives  for  the  world  he  tries 
To  help, — he  lives  eternally. 

A  good  man  never  dies. 

"Who  lives  to  bravely  take 

His  share  of  toil  and  stress, 
And,  for  his  weaker  fellows'  sake, 

Makes  every  burden  less." 

One  of  Riley 's  most  generally  quoted  poems  is 
"Our  Kind  of  a  Man."  What  a  magnificent  picture 


216      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

it  is  of  the  man  whose  faith  works  through  love;  of 
the  man  who  gives  hands  and  feet  to  the  Gospel.  It 
is  the  man  who  smites  wrong  with  a  knuckled  faith ; 
who  lives  what  he  preaches ;  who  is  ears  to  the  deaf 
and  eyes  to  the  blind ;  who  helps  the  widow  and  the 
sick;  who  gives  full  credit  for  honest  effort  how 
ever  little  the  results  may  be;  who  shares  the  pain 
of  the  doubts  that  rack  heart  and  brain;  who  looks 
on  sin  with  pitying  eyes,  even  as  the  Lord,  who  has 
promised  that  though  our  sins  should  glow  as  scar 
let,  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow : 

"And,  feeling  still,  with  a  grief  half  glad, 
That  the  bad  are  as  good  as  the  good  are  bad, 
He  strikes  straight  out  for  the  Right — and  he 
Is  the  kind  of  a  man  for  you  and  me!" 

But  the  service  of  Love  must  begin  with  our 
thoughts  concerning  others.  We  ought  to  take 
kindly  views  of  doubtful  actions.  We  ought  to  put 
the  best  possible  construction  on  another's  word  or 
deed.  If  we  think  unkindly  about  others  we  can  not 
act  otherwise  in  the  end;  for  "thoughts  winged  with 
feelings  are  springs  of  action."  "As  a  man  thinketh 
in  his  heart,  so  is  he,"  speaks  he,  does  he  in  the  end. 
Therefore,  it  is  a  good  thing  for  those  who  would 
serve  others  to  adopt  as  their  own  that  most  typical 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      217 

expression  of  Riley's  creed,  that  first  appeared  un 
der  the  title  "The  Human  Heart,"  but  finally  "As 
Created" : 

"There's  a  space  for  good  to  bloom  in 
Every  heart  of  man  or  woman, — 
And  however  wild  or  human, 

Or  however  brimmed  with  gall, 
Never  heart  may  beat  without  it; 
And  the  darkest  heart  to  doubt  it 
Has  something  good  about  it 

After  alll" 

Thus  does  he  proclaim  a  universal  sympathy.  It 
is  Christian  to  recognize  the  Neighborhood  and 
Brotherhood  of  man.  The  modern  Jericho  Road 
stretches  far  away.  It  is  filled  with  a  vast  polyglot 
procession  from  every  land  under  the  sun.  They 
are  a  host  of  needy  creatures.  The  halt  and  hurt, 
the  blind  and  orphan,  the  wounded  and  worsted, 
yea,  and  those  that  sin  are  there.  The  true  Chris 
tian  knows  absolutely  nothing  of  race  prejudice,  and 
class  hatred,  and  social  distinctions,  and  denomi 
national  bigotry.  But  he  loves  folks  because  they 
are  world  neighbors  of  his,  world  kinsmen,  indeed, 
brothers  of  his  in  mortality  and  sin,  it  is  true,  but 
brothers  also  in  immortality.  This  is  the  sentiment 
with  which  Riley  closes  his  poem  on  "Writin'  Back 
to  the  Home-Folks" : 


218      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"And  ef  we  minded  God,  I  guess 

We'd  all  love  one  another 
Jes'  like  one  famb'ly, — me  and  Pap 

And  Madaline  and  Mother." 

It  is  this  idea  of  the  familyhood  of  the  race  that 
moves  through  "My  Ruthers,"  a  "Benj.  F.  John 
son"  poem  that  purported  to  have  been  "Writ  durin' 
State  Fair  at  Indanoplis,  whilse  visitin'  a  Son  in  law 
then  residin'  thare,"  a  part  of  which  we  give  here 
with: 

"I'd  ruther  kindo'  git  the  swing 
O'  what  was  needed,  first,  I  jingl 
Afore  I  swet  at  anything!— 3 
Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers; — • 
In  fact  I'd  aim  to  be  the  same 
With  all  men  as  my  brothers; 
And  they'd  all  be  the  same  with  m&-* 
Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers. 

"The  pore  'ud  git  theyr  dues  .sometimes— • 

Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers, — 
And  be  paid  dollars  'stid  o'  dimes, 
Fer  childern,  wives  and  mothers : 
Theyr  boy  that  slaves ;  theyr  girl  that  sews— • 
Fer  others — not  herself,  God  knows! — 
The  grave's  her  only  change  of  clothes ! 
.  .   .   Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers, 
They'd  all  have  'stuff'  and  time  enugh 

To  answer  one-another's 
Appealin'  prayer  fer  'lovin'  care'— • 
Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      219 

"They'd  be  few  folks  'ud  ast  f er  trust, 

Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers, 
And  blame  few  business  men  to  bu'st 
Theyrselves,  er  harts  of  others: 
Big  Guns  that  come  here  durin'  Fair- 
Week  could  put  up  jest  anywhere, 
And  find  a  full-and-plenty  thare, 
Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers : 
The  rich  and  great  'ud  'sociate 

With   all   theyr   lowly  brothers, 
Feelin'  we  done  the  honorun — 
Ef  I  only  had  my  ruthers." 

Riley  always  had  a  deep  and  tender  sympathy 
with  the  poor  and  lowly.  He  did  not  attempt  to  in 
cite  them,  as  did  Burns  and  Shelley,  to  revolt  against 
their  exploiters  and  despoilers.  Nevertheless,  he 
had  the  profoundest  respect  for  and  sympathy  with 
honest  toil.  Without  envying  the  rich,  he  loved  the 
poor.  He  had  seen  too  often  the  effects  of  great 
wealth  upon  its  possessor;  hence,  one  of  the  greatest 
lines  he  ever  wrote  is : 

"They's  nothin'  much  patheticker'n  jes*  a-bein'  rich." 

Riley  was  acquainted  with  the  corroding  fret  of 
poverty.  He  had  known  by  experience  the  fierce 
and  tragic  struggle  for  existence.  Though  in  his 
later  years  he  became  rich  from  the  ever-increasing 


220      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

royalty  on  his  books,  yet  his  simple,  unostentatious 
nature  prayed  "Ike  Walton's  Prayer" : 

"I  pray  not  that 

Men  tremble  at 

My  power  of  place 

And  lordly  sway, 
I  only  pray  for  simple  grace 
To  look  my  neighbor  in  the  face 
Full  honestly  from  day  to  day — 
Yield  me  his  horny  palm  to  hold, 
And  I'll  not  pray 

For  gold; — 

The  tanned  face,  garlanded  with  mirth, 
It  hath  the  kingliest  smile  on  earth; 
The  swart  brow,  diamonded  with  sweat, 
Hath  never  need  of  coronet." 

While  in  such  poems  as  "A  Poor  Man's  Wealth" 
and  "Down  to  the  Capital"  he  pities  those  who  are 
rich  in  purse  but  poor  in  spirit;  rich  in  luxuriant 
raiment  and  blazing  with  diamonds  and  precious 
stones  but  poor  in  intellect ;  crying  out 

"They's  nothin*  much  patheticker'n  jes*  a-bein'  rich," 

yet  it  was  of  the  common  folk  whom  he  knew  so 
well  and  loved  with  such  intense  fidelity  and  devo 
tion  that  he  usually  sang.  In  "Little  Mandy's 
Christmas-Tree"  we  have  in  child  style  a  most 
pathetic  description  of  a  poverty-stricken  home: 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      221 

front  step  down,  no  door-knob,  no  window  shutters, 
brown  paper  pasted  where  the  window  glass  was 
broken,  no  fuel,  no  carpet,  no  food,  nothing  indeed 
but  want  and  sorrow.  And  then  a  committee  was 
sent  from  the  Sunday-School  to  this  home  of  little 
Mandy  to  invite  them  to  participate  in  the  joys  of 
the  Christmas-Tree  at  the  Sunday-School ;  and  when 
little  Mandy  did  not  know  what  a  Christmas-Tree 
was,  it  was  planned  to  have  a  little  tree  hidden  be 
hind  the  larger  one  to  present  to  her  for  her  very 
own.  But  when  Christmas  Eve  came  and  the  church 
was  full  of  happy  children  and  their  teachers  and 
parents,  and  the  little  tree  was  behind  the  big  one, 
and  little  Mandy's  name  was  called,  little  Mandy  did 
not  answer,  for  she  was  gone  to  be  with  Him,  whose 
birthday  they  were  celebrating;  and  then  the  resolu 
tion  was  formed  that :  hereafter  the  poor  neglected 
children  of  the  town  shall  receive  more  considera 
tion  at  the  Christmas  season,  and  the  fortunate  little 
children  who  have  abundance  would  give  a  tree  to 
those  who  lacked,  and  they  would  call  this  tree  "Lit 
tle  Mandy's  Tree" : 

"Little  Mandy,  though,  she  don't 
Answer — and  Ma  says  'she  won't 
Never,  though  each  year  they'll  be 
"Little  Mandy's  Chris-mus-Tree" 


222      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"  'Fer  pore  childern' — my  Ma  says — 
And  Committee  say  they  guess 
'Little  Mandy's  Tree'  'ull  be 
Bigger  than  the  other  Tree!" 

The  kindly  poet  would  have  Christians  manifest 
that  form  of  sympathy  known  as  philanthropy,  and 
he  would  have  them  do  it  in  the  name  of  the  benefi 
cent  Christ.  In  the  poem  "The  Curse  of  the  Wan 
dering  Foot"  he  makes  a  tramp  use  these  words : 

"Give  me  to  sup  of  your  pity — 

Feast  me  on  prayers ! — O  ye, 
Met  I  your  Christ  in  the  city, 

He  would  fare  forth  with  me." 

Such  unselfish  service,  done  in  the  name  of  Christ, 
is  the  best  credential  for  religion.  We  have  not  for 
gotten  how,  when  in  perplexity  John  the  Baptist  sent 
his  disciples  to  Jesus  inquiring  if  He  really  were 
the  Coming  One,  or  whether  they  should  look  for 
another,  Jesus  simply  told  them  to  go  back  and  tell 
John  what  they  saw,  how  "the  blind  receive  their 
sight,  and  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers  are  cleaned,  and 
the  deaf  hear,  and  the  dead  are  raised  up,  and  the 
poor  have  good  tidings  preached  to  them."  That  was 
enough.  Any  religion  that  carries  out  such  a  prac 
tical  program  of  the  ministry  of  sympathy  as  that 
will  not  have  to  argue  long  for  its  claim  to  Divinity. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      223 

In  "His  Vigil"  our  beloved  poet  causes  one  who  has 
been  comforted  and  helped  by  another  to  beg  that 
other  to  remain  by  him — 

"Just  as  God  were  sitting  here." 

Nothing  finer  was  ever  said  about  a  person  than 
that:  to  remind  one's  fellows  of  God!  That  is  an 
ambition  big  enough  for  the  best  of  us;  so  to  serve 
as  to  make  others  think  of  God. 

But  not  only  does  such  a  spirit  recommend  God 
to  others,  it  also  is  well-pleasing  to  God  Himself. 
Once  when  Riley  was  in  reminiscent  mood  he  wrote 
a  poem  which  describes  the  lore  of  the  shoe-shop  at 
Greenfield,  his  boyhood  home.  The  subject  of  the 
poem  is  a  journeyman  shoemaker  by  the  name  of 
"Jim."  He  was  a  patient,  honest,  jovial  man,  with 
a  quick  and  serving  sympathy  for  all  who  stood  in 
need  of  help,  and  just  because  he  responded  to  every 
appeal  to  help  the  needy,  Mr.  Riley  concludes : 

"When  God  made  Jim,  I  bet  you  He  didn't 

Do  anything  else  that  day,  but  jes'  set  around  and  feel  good." 

We  sometimes  talk  about  right  for  right's  sake 
and  duty  for  duty's  sake,  and  we  say  that  a  man 
ought  to  do  right  just  because  it  is  right,  and  not  be 
cause  some  one  has  told  him  to  do  right.  Neverthe- 


224      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

less,  it  is  impossible  to  get  the  race  of  mankind  away 
from  the  idea  of  rewards  and  punishments,  and  the 
surest  way  to  correct  evils  and  to  restrain  individ 
uals  from  doing  that  which  is  wrong,  is  to  have  im 
planted  within  every  one  an  unquestioning  old-fash 
ioned  faith  in  the  universal  presence  of  God.  If  we 
can  get  people  to  understand  that  "Thou  God  seest 
me"  is  a  sentiment  just  as  fit  to  be  used  to-day  as  it 
was  in  Hagar's  time;  if  we  can  make  the  business 
man  understand  that  God  notes  every  transaction  of 
his;  if  we  can  make  the  young  man  know  that  God 
sees  him  in  the  darkness  as  in  the  daylight,  abroad  as 
at  home;  and  that  God  not  only  sees  but  that  He 
cares;  then  we  have  gone  a  long  way  not  only  in 
bringing  up  a  race  of  people  who  are  masterpieces 
of  restraint,  but  we  have  also  done  much  to  develop 
characters  that  are  absolutely  God-like  in  their  posi 
tive  good.  Now,  that  God  does  see  and  is  pleased 
when  His  children  make  heavy  hearts  light,  is  most 
clearly  expressed  by  Mr.  Riley  in  "The  Book  of 
Joyous  Children,"  where  he  says : 

"Front  the   Father's   smiling    face — 
Smiling,  that  you  smile  the  brighter 
For  the  heavy  hearts  made  lighter, 

Since  you  smile  with  Him." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      225 

Still  another  by-product  of  unselfish  service  is 
happiness.  The  quest  of  happiness  is  the  universal 
quest  of  mankind.  Making  this  quest  men  will 
work  for  gold  until  they  become  as  hard  as  the  metal 
they  seek.  They  will  follow  learning  until  they  be 
come  as  lifeless  as  the  pages  they  scan;  they  will 
give  themselves  to  sensual  pleasures  until  they  be 
come  reeking  masses  of  corruption;  but  our  kind 
poet  has  the  unfailing  prescription  for  happiness. 
In  the  "Rubaiyat  of  Doc  Sifers,"  when  some  one 
asked  him  for  a  prescription  "fer  bein'  happy  by," 
Doc  wrote  on  a  piece  of  paper  these  words : 

"Go  he'p  the  sick,  and  putt  your  heart  in  it" 

Riley  wrote  that  this  Doc  Sifers  did  not  need  to 
claim  any  creed,  and  that  he  did  not  raise  loud,  vain 
glorious  prayers  in  crowded  marts  or  public  ways 
to  be  heard  of  men,  but  that  his  prayers  rose  from 
way  deep  down  in  his  heart,  when  he  was  out  alone 
at  night  facing  the  storm  on  his  way  to  assuage 
human  suffering,  when  all  the  rest  of  the  town  was 
comfortably  at  rest.  He  was  always  ready  to  an 
swer  any  calls  at  any  time  of  night  or  day  and 
whether  folks  were  rich  or  poor.  He  could  be  found 
at  the  bedside  of  anguish  and  when  the  patient  was 


|>ast  all  human  power,  Doc  would  try  to  make  it 
easier  for  the  patient  to  sing  the  triumphant  words 
of  Saint  Paul:  "O  death,  where  is  thy  sting!  O 
grave,  where  is  thy  victory !" 

How  many  tragedies  of  evil  temper  there  are  in 
the  world,  and  the  sad  thing  about  it  is  that  those 
who  have  a  touchy  disposition,  or  a  quick,  or  sullen, 
or  revengeful  temper  are  rather  proud  of  the  fact. 
Riley  has  the  right  idea  when  he  insists  that  a  man 
ought  to  show  his  temper  who  is  boss ;  and  that  the 
finest  manhood  is  developed  by  overcoming  the 
temptations  of  a  quick  or  sullen  temper.  He  s'ays 
that  that  is  what  man's  temper  is  for,  to  hold  back 
out  of  view,  and  to  teach  it  never  to  get  ahead  of 
one.  Thus  in  the  "Rubaiyat  of  Doc  Sifers"  he  says : 

"Doc's  got  a  temper;  but,  he  says,  he's  learnt  it  which  is  boss, 
Yit  has  to  watch  it,  more  er  less.  ...  I  never  seen  him  cross 
But  onc't,  enough  to  make  him  swear ; — milch-cow  stepped  on 

his  toe, 
And  Doc  ripped  out  'I  doggies!' — There's  the  only  case  I  know. 

"Doc  says  that's  what  your  temper's  f  er — to  hold  back  out  o' 

view, 

And  learn  it  never  to  occur  on  out  ahead  o*  you. — 
'You  lead  the  way,'  says  Sifers — 'git  your  temper  back  in  line — 
And  furdest  back  the  best,  ef  it's  as  mean  a  one  as  mine  1' " 

And   Doc   hates   contentions.      He   can't  abide 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      227 

wrangles  or  disputes  of  any  kind.  He  will  leave  a 
crowd  and  slip  up  some  back  alley  as  soon  as  a  fight 
begins  or  abusive  terms  are  used.  He  says  the  side 
that  he  generally  takes  is  the  one  he  never  hears. 

But  practical  religion  does  not  exhaust  itself  in 
doing;  it  expresses  itself  also  in  our  speech.  Here, 
also,  we  have  instruction  from  our  bard  in  his  poem 
entitled  "Let  Something  Good  Be  Said" : 

"When  over  the  fair  fame  of  friend  or  foe 
The  Shadows  of  disgrace  shall  fall,  instead 

Of  words  of  blame,  or  proof  of  thus  and  so, 
Let  something  good  be  said. 

"Forget  not  that   no   fellow-being  yet 
May  fall  so  low  but  love  may  lift  his  head: 

Even  the  cheek  of   shame  with  tears   is  wet, 
If  something  good  be  said. 

"No  generous  heart  may  vainly  turn  aside 
In   ways   of   sympathy;   no   soul   so   dead 

But  may  awaken  strong  and  glorified, 
If  something  good  be  said. 

"And  so  I  charge  ye,  by  the  thorny  crown, 
And  by  the  cross  on  which  the  Saviour  bled, 

And  by  your  own  soul's  hope  of   fair  renown, 
Let  something  good  be  said  1" 

Read  those  words  over  again — and  then  again. 
Most  of  us  need  the  advice  contained  in  them.  How 


228      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

prone  we  are  to  hint  a  fault  in  another's  character ; 
to  give  our  inferences  as  actual  fact;  to  repeat  our 
suspicions  for  truth;  to  impute  a  false  motive  for 
another's  word  or  deed ;  to  tell  a  half-truth,  which  is 
worse  than  a  whole  lie;  to  maintain  a  malignant 
silence  when  another's  character  is  traduced  or  vili 
fied.  Shame  on  us!  Let  us  read  over  again — and 
live — "Let  Something  Good  Be  Said." 

Christ  said,  "Forgive  your  enemies;  Bless  them 
that  curse  you.  Pray  for  them  that  despite  fully  use 
you."  That  is  a  mighty  hard  doctrine  to  live  up  to 
always,  but  Mr.  Riley  was  speaking  in  "My  Foe" 
to  one  who  so  named  himself.  Mr.  Riley  said  that 
he  refused  to  designate  his  opponent  by  a  term  so 
dark.  He  said  that  to  him  he  was  most  kind  and 
true  and  that  he  was  as  grateful  for  him  as  the  dusk 
is  for  the  dews.  He  urges  that  his  "Foe"  shall  not 
vex  himself  for  any  lack  of  moan  or  cry  of  his ;  he 
says  that  he  is  not  afraid  of  any  harm  or  bruise 
reaching  his  soul  through  any  stroke  of  his  enemy's. 
He  would  rather  call  the  man  who  describes  himself 
as  "foe"  a  helpless  friend,  thus : 

"So,  blessing  you,  with  pitying  countenance, 
I  wave  a  hand  to  you,  my  helpless  friend." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET   .  229 

So  we  have  had  our  message  of  practical  re 
ligion.  Thank  you,  dear  Riley,  for  it.  We  can  not 
close  this  meditation  in  any  better  way  than  by  quot 
ing  "A  Simple  Recipe"  which  our  poet  wrote  to  a 
young  friend",  "Showing  How  to  Make  the  Right 
Kind  of  a  Man  Out  of  the  Right  Kind  of  a  Boy." 
The  "Recipe"  is  not  so  hard  to  read  (be  honest,  keep 
clean,  do  your  level  best),  but  it  is  harder  to  take: 

"Be  honest — both  in  word  and  act, 

Be  strictly  truthful  through  and  through : 

Fact  can  not  fail. — You  stick  to  fact, 
And  fact  will  stick  to  you. 

"Be  clean — outside  and  in,  and  sweep 
Both  hearth  and  heart  and  hold  them  bright; 

Wear  snowy  linen — aye,  and  keep 
Your  conscience  snowy-white. 

"Do  right,  your  utmost — good  must  come 

To  you  who  do  your  level  best — 
Your  very  hopes  will  help  you  some, 

And  work  will  do  the  rest." 


CHAPTER  X 

PATRIOTISM  IN  RILEY'S  RHYMES 

IT  should  be  set  to  some  stirring,  singable  music — > 
James  Whitcomb  Riley's  "America."  It  pos 
sesses  every  qualification  of  a  truly  national  an 
them;  it  appeals  to  those  two  thoughts  that  most 
profoundly  stir  our  emotions :  our  country  and  our 
God.  It  makes  just  sufficient  allusion  to  our  history, 
and  gives  adequate  expression  to  our  ideals.  It  is 
true  poetry:  the  mellifluous  consonants  are  used, 
but  not  dragged  in  unnaturally;  alliterations  are 
there,  but  not  strained  after;  the  rhythm  is  fault 
less  ;  the  rhyme  is  effective ;  the  repetition  of  "Amer 
ica!  America!"  is  most  impressive.  It  is  not  too 
long;  there  are  just  five  stanzas  of  it ;  let  us  give  it  in 
full: 

"In  the  need  that  bows  us  thus, 

America ! 
Shape  a  mighty  song  for  us — 

America ! 

Song  to  whelm  a  hundred  years' 
Roar  of  wars  and  rain  of  tears 
'Neath  a  world's  triumphant  cheers: 

America!  America! 

230 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      231 

"Lift  the  trumpet  to  thy  mouth, 

America ! 
East  and  West  and  North  and  South—* 

America ! 

Call   us   round   the   dazzling   shrine 
Of  the  starry  old  ensign — 
New  baptized   in  blood  of  thine, 

America!  America  I 

"Dying   eyes    through    pitying   mists, 

America! 
See  the  Assassin's  shackled  wrists, 

America ! 

Patient  eyes  that  turn  their  sight 
From    all   blackening   crime    and   blight 
Still  toward  Heaven's  holy  light — 

America !   America  1 

"High  o'erlooking  sea  and  land, 

America  1 
Trustfully  with  outheld  hand, 

America ! 

Thou   dost  welcome  all  in  quest 
Of  thy  freedom,  peace  and  rest — 
Every   exile   is   thy  guest, 

America !   America ! 

"Thine  a  universal  love, 

America ! 
Thine  the  cross  and  crown  thereof, 

America ! 

Aid  us,  then,  to  sing  thy  worth; 
God  hath  builded,  from  thy  birth, 
The  first  nation  of  the  earth — 

America!  America!" 


232      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

It  was  composed  on  September  14,  1901,  the  day 
President  McKinley  died.  To  make  a  particular 
event  the  occasion  for  speaking  general  truth  is  the 
function  of  the  prophet ;  and  to  soar  from  some  sol 
emn  solitude  into  the  eternities  is  the  prerogative  of 
the  seer.  Thus  is  the  poet  greater  than  the  histo 
rian;  the  poet  expresses  the  universal  because  the 
universal  is  within  him. 

The  main  title  of  the  above  poem  is  "America," 
but  its  subtitle  is  "O  Thou,  America — Messiah  of 
Nations."  That  is  a  mighty  happy  title.  We  won 
der  whether  Riley  got  the  idea  from  Lowell's  lines : 

"All  nations  have  their  message  from  on  high, 
Each  the  messiah  of  some  central  thought 
For  the  fulfillment  and  delight  of  men," 

or  whether  he  got  it  straight  from  the  Bible;  for 
the  Old  Testament  is  full  of  the  messianic  conscious 
ness  of  the  Jewish  nation.  The  word  "Messiah" 
means  anointed ;  and  the  anointing  was  an  inaugura 
tion  ritual  used  among  the  Jews  to  set  one  apart  for 
some  special  work.  Priests  and  kings  were  anointed. 
And  in  the  thought  of  the  Jews  their  whole  nation 
was  anointed.  Thus  Habakkuk  says :  "Thou  went- 
est  forth  for  the  salvation  of  thy  people,  for  the 
salvation  of  thine  anointed."  And  in  Isaiah  God 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      233 

says  to  the  nation :  "It  is  too  light  a  thing  that  thou 
shouldst  be  my  servant  to  raise  up  the  tribes  of 
Jacob,  and  to  restore  the  preserved  of  Israel :  I  will 
also  give  thee  for  a  light  to  the  Gentiles,  that  thou 
mayest  be  my  salvation  unto  the  end  of  the  earth." 

This  messianic  conception,  which  is  one  of  the 
greatest  miracles  of  the  Bible,  runs  through  it  all. 
That  in  the  seed  of  Abraham  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  were  to  be  blessed  was  the  pivotal  idea  on 
which  the  history  of  the  patriarchs  turned.  They 
felt  that  thev  had  a  world-wide  commission.  The 
prophets  labored  to  get  Israel  to  rise  above  a  narrow 
provincialism  to  the  great  task  of  carrying  salvation 
to  the  whole  world. 

This  was  why  they  were  the  "chosen  people," 
chosen  to  serve.  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  because  he 
fulfilled  in  himself  these  words  of  the  prophet :  "The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  anointed 
me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the  poor ;  he  hath  sent 
me  to  proclaim  release  to  the  captives,  and  recover 
ing  of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that 
are  bruised,  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the 
Lord." 

In  the  light  of  the  messianic  conception  as  hinted 
at  above,  we  get  some  idea  of  the  great  sermon  that 


234      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Mr.  Riley  preaches  by  the  subtle  use  he  makes  of  it 
in  the  subtitle  of  his  poem:  "O  Thou,  America — 
Messiah  of  Nations." 

But  if  America  has  a  messianic  mission,  what  is 
it?  In  another  of  Riley's  poems,  "The  Quest  of 
the  Fathers,"  it  is  set  forth.  He  asks : 

"What  were  our  Forefathers  trying  to  find 

When  they  weighed  anchor,  that  desperate  hour 
They  turned  from  home,  and  the  warning  wind 
Sighed  in  the  sails  of  the  old  Mayflower?" 

Could  they  find  anything  to  compensate  them  for 
what  they  were  leaving  behind — their  native  land, 
its  history,  its  throne,  its  church,  its  gold,  its  cheer, 
and  the  green  mounds  where  their  brave  sires  slum 
bered  ?  They  left  their  old  home  with  pale,  sternly- 
set  faces,  close-locked  lips,  tearless  eyes : 

"But  O,  the  light  from  the  soul  within, 
As  each  spake  each  with  a  flashing  mind — 

As  the  lightning  speaks  to  its  kith  and  kin  1 
What  were  our  Forefathers  trying  to  find?" 

The  foot  of  their  ship  was  set  in  a  pathless  sea. 
They  groped  their  way  through  storms  and  fogs, 
and  mists  and  blinding  rain,  and  were  unable  to  see 
the  skies,  but 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      235 

"The  Lord's  look  found  them  ne'ertheless — • 
Found  them,  yea,  in  their  piteous  lot, 

As  they  in  their  faith  from  the  first  divined — 
Found  them  and  favored  them — too.   But  what — 

What  were  our  Forefathers  trying  to  find  ?" 

At  last  they  landed  on  a  frozen  shore,  bleak  and 
dread;  but  they  were  so  glad  that  as  they  knelt  in 
prayer  the  very  snows  seemed  warm : 

"For,  lo !  they  were  close  on  the  trail  they  sought : — 

In  the  sacred  soil  of  the  rights  of  men 
They  marked  where  the  Master-hand  had  wrought ; 

And  there  they  garnered  and  sowed  again. — 
Their  land — then  ours,  as  to-day  it  is, 

With  its  flag  of  heaven's  own  light  designed, 
And  God's  vast  love  o'er  all.   .   .   .   And  this 

Is  what  our  forefathers  were  trying  to  find." 

The  thing  the  Forefathers  were  trying  to  find  was 
more  clearly  described  by  the  poet  in  "Liberty,"  a 
poem  written  twenty-three  years  before  "The  Quest 
of  the  Fathers."  In  "Liberty"  he  represents  himself 
as  looking  out  on  the  "gulf  of  years,"  through  the 
lens  of  history  and  discerning  the  approaching  May 
flower  as  drifting  through  "the  fogs  of  wrong." 
He  pictures  their  landing  upon  Plymouth  Rock,  and 
tells  of  the  days  of  toil,  days  of  pain,  days  of  despair 
that  followed.  But  they  stayed,  they  conquered. 


236      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

Then  the  woodman  shaped  a  song  of  Liberty,  one 
stanza  of  which  is: 

"Sing  for  the  arms  that  fling 
Their  fetters  in  the  dust 
And  lift  their  hands  in  higher  trust 

Unto  the  one  Great  King; 

Sing  for  the  patriot  heart  and  hand ; 

Sing  for  the  country  they  have  planned ; 

Sing  that  the  world  may  understand 
This  is  Freedom's  land!" 

It  is  a  most  interesting  narrative  poem  that  goes  on 
to  tell  of  the  subduing  of  the  forest,  the  nesting  of 
cabins,  the  fighting  with  Indians,  the  increasing 
number  of  colonies  that  "like  footprints  in  the  sand 
marked  Freedom's  pathway  winding  through  the 
land."  And  these  footprints  of  Freedom  led  to 
Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill,  and  on  to  the  Fourth 
of  July,  when  Independence  Dell  was  charged  to 

"Ring  in  the  gleaming  dawn 

Of  Freedom— Tofl  the  knell 
Of  Tyranny,  and  then  ring  on, 

O  Independence  Belt" 

Still  on  and  on,  through  the  Civil  War,  and  still  on, 
until 

"O  Liberty,  it  is  thy  power 
To  gladden  us  in  every  hour." 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      237 

This,  then,  is  the  special  mission  of  America:  to 
furnish  hospice  for  Freedom;  to  guard  the  idea  of 
Liberty  as  the  never-sleeping  dragon  of  mythology 
guarded  the  gardens  of  the  Hesperides.  And  if 
America  is  the  Messiah  of  Nations  it  is  under  divine 
compulsion  to  make  the  world  safe  for  Liberty. 

Wherever  our  flag  is  unfurled  to  the  breeze  it  is 
a  pledge  of  liberty  and  justice;  a  pledge  that  the 
rights  of  the  weakest  will  be  respected.  That  is  the 
reason  why  we  love 

"The  dear  old  Flag,  whose  faintest  flutter  flies 
A  stirring  echo  through  each  patriot  breast," 

as  James  Whitcomb  Riley  says  in  "The  Silent  Vic 
tors."  We  call  it  "Old  Glory."  Why?  Lots  of 
people  want  to  know.  Mr.  Riley  answers  the  ques 
tion  in  "The  Name  of  Old  Glory."  It  is  rather  long 
to  quote  the  whole  of  it  here;  but  it  is  so  good,  so 
racy,  so  patriotic,  so  illustrative  of  Riley's  love  of 
indulging  in  whimsical  combinations,  that  we  must 
have  it  all.  Note  how  the  tone  of  it  deepens  as  it 
proceeds : 

"Old  Glory!  say,  who, 
By  the  ships  and  the  crew, 

And   the   long,   blended   ranks   of   the  gray  and   the  blue,— § 
Who  gave  you  the  name  of  Old  Glory? 


238      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

With  such  pride  everywhere 
As  you  cast  yourself  free  to  the  rapturous  air 
And  leap  out  full-length,  as  we're  wanting  you  to? — 
Who  gave  you  that  name,  with  the  ring  of  the  same 
And  the  honor  and  fame  so  becoming  to  you? — 
Your  stripes  stroked  in  ripples  of  white  and  of  red, 
With  your  stars  at  their  glittering  best  overhead — 
By  day  or  by  night 
Their  delightfulest  light 

Laughing  down  from  their  little  square  heaven  of  blue!- 
Who  gave  you  the  name  of  Old  Glory? — say,  who — 
Who  gave  you  the  name  of  Old  Glory? 

"The  old  banner  lifted,  and  faltering  then 
In  vague  lisps  and  whispers  fell  silent  again. 

"Old  Glory, — speak  out! — we  are  asking  about 
How  you  happened  to  "favor"  a  name,  so  to  say, 
That  sounds  so  familiar  and  careless  and  gay 
As  we  cheer  it  and  shout  in  our  wild  breezy  way — 
We — the  crowd,  every  man  of  us,  calling  you  that — 
We — Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry — each  swinging  his  hat 
And  hurrahing  "Old  Glory !"  like  you  were  our  kin, 
When — Lord! — we  all  know  we're  as  common  as  sinl 
And  yet  it  just  seems  like  you  humor  us  all 
And  waft  us  your  thanks,  as  we  hail  you  and  fall 
Into  line,  with  you  over  us,  waving  us  on 
Where   our  glorified,   sanctified   betters  have  gone. — 
(And  we're  wanting  it  so! — 

Where  our  own  fathers  went  we  are  willing  to  go.) — ' 
Who  gave  you  the  name  of  Old  Glory — Oho! — 
Who  gave  you  the  name  of  Old  Glory? 

"The  old  flag  unfurled  with  a  billowy  thrill 

For  an  instant,  then  wistfully  sighed  and  was  still. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      239 

"Old  Glory:  the  story  we're  wanting  to  hear 
Is  what  the  plain  facts  of  your  christening  were,—* 
For  your  name — just  to  hear  it, 
Repeat  it,  and  cheer  it,  's  a  tang  to  the  spirit 
As  salt  as  a  tear; — 

And  seeing  you  fly,  and  the  boys  marching  by, 
There's  a  shout  in  the  throat  and  a  blur  in  the  eye 
And  an  aching  to  live  for  you  always — or  die, 
If,  dying,  we  still  keep  you  waving  on  high. 
And  so  by  our  love 
For  you,  floating  above, 

And  the  scars  of  all  wars  and  the  sorrows  thereof, 
Who  gave  you  the  name  of  Old  Glory  and  why 
Are  we  thrilled  at  the  name  of  Old  Glory? 

"Then  the  old  banner  leaped,  like  a  sail  in  the  blast, 
And  fluttered  an  audible  answer  at  last. — 

"And  it  spake,  with  a  shake  of  the  voice,  and  it  said :— * 
By  the  driven   snow-white  and  the  living  blood-red 
Of  my  bars,  and  their  heaven   of   stars   overhead — 
By   the    symbol   conjoined    of   them   all,    skyward   cast, 
As  I  float  from  the  steeple,  or  flap  at  the  mast, 
Or  droop  o'er  the  sod  where  the  long  grasses  nod, — 
My  name  is  as  old  as  the  glory  of  God. 
....     So  I  came  by  the  name  of  Old  Glory." 

There  again  you  can  hear  the  messianic  call  to 
America.  If  it  should  ever  fail  to  rise  to  its  sub 
lime  opportunity  of  being  the  seed-plot  of  freedom 
for  the  world,  its  failure  would  be  the  tragic  scandal 
of  the  ages.  But  it  shall  not  fail;  for  did  not  Mr. 
Riley  only  say  what  is  in  the  heart  of  each  one  of  us 


240      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

when  he  assured  pur  nation's  hallowed  emblem 
there's 

"...   an  aching  to  live  for  you  always — or  die, 
If,  dying,  we  still  keep  you  waving  on  high." 

And  many  have  died  for  Old  Glory.  Indeed  our 
bard  sees  "The  Conqueror"  crowned  eternally 

"And  sheltered  under  a  flag  that  shakes 
Her  silken  stripes  and  her  silver  stars 
Into  a  tangle  of  endless  wars." 

Mr.  Riley's  father  was  a  soldier,  a  captain  in  the 
Union  Army  during  the  Civil  War.  In  many,  very 
many,  of  his  poems  reference  to  the  war  creeps  in. 
He  was  always  quick  to  honor  in  exalted  line  the 
glorious  lineage  of  "The  Soldier." 

"The  Soldier. — Lo,  he  ever  was  and  is 

Our  Country's  high  custodian,  by  right 
Of  patriot  blood  that  brims  that  heart  of  his." 

Within  the  Soldier's  inviolate  care  "the  Nation 
takes  repose."  The  Soldier  is  the  guardian  of  her 
inmost  fane  of  Freedom.  Our  thoughts  are  blown 

"Back  where  The  Soldier  battled1,  nor  refused 
A  grave  all  nameless  in  a  clime  unknown. — 

The  Soldier — though,  perchance,  worn,  old  and  gray; 
The  Soldier — though,  perchance,  the  merest  lad, — 

The  Soldier — though  he  gave  his  life  away, 
Hearing  the  shout  of  'Victory,'  was  glad ; 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      241 

"Ay,  glad  and  grateful,  that  in  such  a  cause 

His  veins  were  drained  at  Freedom's  holy  shrine — 
Rechristening  the  land — as  first  it  was, — 

His  blood  poured  thus  in  sacramental  sign 
Of  new  baptism  of  the  hallowed  name 

'My  Country' — now  on  every  lip  once  more 
And  blest  of  God  with  still  enduring  fame. — 

This  thought  even  then  The  Soldier  gloried  o'er." 

But  why  so  ready  to  die  for  "my  Country"  ?  We 
get  our  answer  from  "Liberty"  (referred  to 
earlier) ,  and  the  answer  carries  us  back  to  the  mes 
sianic  conception  of  our  nation : 

"O  Liberty — the  dearest  word 
A    bleeding    country    ever    heard,—- 
We  lay  our  hopes  upon  thy  shrine 
And  offer  up  our  lives    for  thine." 

One  of  Riley's  earlier  poems  is  "The  Silent  Vic 
tors."  He  wrote  it  as  a  young  man  in  his  late 
teens  or  early  twenties,  while  he  was  trying  to  study 
law  in  the  office  of  his  father,  who  was  a  lawyer 
and  an  orator  of  more  than  ordinary  ability.  James 
Whitcomb  Riley  never  liked  law.  He  said  that  for 
the  life  of  him  he  could  not  make  Blackstone  and 
economics  rhyme.  Therefore,  while  his  father 
would  be  in  the  court  room  trying  some  case,  this 
young  "case"  whom  he  seemed  unable  fully  to  un 
derstand,  would  be  writing  poetry.  Among  the 


242      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

poems  of  that  period  is  "The  Silent  Victors."  He 
read  it  at  a  Decoration  Day  service  in  1878.  It  is 
in  praise  of  the 

"Warm  hearts  that  beat  their  lives  out  at  the  shrine 
Of  Freedom,  while  our  country  held  its  breath 

As  brave  battalions   wheeled   themselves   in   line 
And  marched  upon  their  death: 

"When  Freedom's  Flag,  its  fatal  wounds  scarce  healed, 
Was  torn  from  peaceful  winds  and  flung  again 

To  shudder  in  the  storm  of  battle-field — 
The  elements  of  men." 

Six  years  after  "The  Silent  Victors"  was  written 
our  poet  wrote  another  Decoration  Day  poem,  "Sol 
diers  Here  To-day,"  in  which  he  more  plainly  de 
scribed  the  physical  tortures  which  men  were  willing 
>to  undergo  for  the  sake  of  Freedom.  He  greeted 
them  in  chaste  language,  from  spectral  fortress 
walls  and  from  crumbling  battlements  and : 

"From  living  tombs  where  every  hope  seemed  lost — 
With  famine  quarantined  by  bristling  guns — 

The  prison-pens — the  guards — the  'dead-line*  crossed 
By — riddled  skeletons ! 

"From  furrowed  plains,  sown  thick  with  bursting  shells— ; 

From  mountain  gorge,  and  toppling  crags  o'erhead — 
From  wards  of  pestilential  hospitals, 

And  trenches  of  the  dead." 

But  the  soldier  who  blazed  with  courage  to  de- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      243 

fend  the  dear  old  Flag,  "regardless  of  the  shower  of 
shell  and  shot,"  who  plunged  with  dauntless  pride 
into  the  crimson  sea  of  carnage,  was  by  no  means 
the  only  one  who  sacrificed  for  the  cause  of  Free 
dom  :  the  mother  who  knelt  in  the  empty  night ;  the 
wife  who  wrote  to  her  husband  to  tell  of  the  babe 
waiting  for  his  caress,  and  her  letter  passed  one  that 
was  to  tell  her  of  his  death ;  the  maiden  who  in  fancy 
pressed  her  lips  upon  the  brow  that  once  was  dewy 
with  her  kiss,  but  now  held  the  dew  of  death : 

"O  Mother,  you  who  miss  the  smiling  face 
Of  that  dear  boy  who  vanished  from  your  sight, 

And  left  you  weeping  o'er  the  vacant  place 
He  used  to  fill  at  night, — 

"Who   left  you   dazed,   bewildered,   on  a  day 
That  echoed  wild  huzzas,  and  roar  of  guns 

That  drowned  the  farewell  words  you  tried  to  say 
To  incoherent  ones: — 

"Be  glad  and  proud  you  had  the  life  to  give — 
Be  comforted  through  all  the  years  to  come, — 

Your  country  has  a  longer  life  to  live, 
Your  son  a  better  home. 

"O  Widow,  weeping  o'er  the  orphaned  child, 
Who  only  lifts  his  questioning  eyes  to  send 

A  keener  pang  to  grief  unreconciled, — 
Teach  him  to  comprehend 


244      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"He  had  a  father  brave  enough  to  stand  I 

Before  the  fire  of   Treason's  blazing  gun, 

That,  dying,  he  might  will  the  rich  old  land 
Of  Freedom  to  his  son. 

"And,  Maiden,  living  on  through  lonely  years 

In  fealty  to  love's  enduring  ties, — 
With  strong  faith  gleaming  through  the  tender  tears 

That  gather  in  your  eyes. 

"Look  up!  and  own,  in  gratefulness  of  prayer, 
Submission  to  the  will  of  Heaven's  High  Host : — 

I  see  your  Angel-soldier  pacing  there, 
Expectant  at  his  post" 

Another  illustration  of  the  deeds  of  heroism,  too 
often  unrecorded,  performed  for  Liberty  is  "The 
Old  Man  and  Jim."  This  poem  is  a  universal  favor 
ite.  It  is  read  and  quoted  by  men  who  are  not  in 
the  habit  of  reading  poetry — who  are  so  foolish  as 
to  think  it  a  sign  of  weakness  to  be  caught  in  the 
act  of  reading  poetry  of  any  kind,  but  who  read 
Riley  and  tolerate  sentiment  in  him  because  he 
makes  it  altogether  natural  and  wraps  a  familiar 
atmosphere  of  perfect  reality  around  his  poems. 
YOU  have  to  trap  the  average  man  into  any  display  of 
emotion  and  the  Hoosier  bard  spreads  for  him  many 
a  net  from  which  there  is  no  escape ;  as  in  "The  Old 
Man  and  Jim/'  where  the  subject  is  the  loneliness 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      245 

and  heartache  of  the  farmer  who  was  too  old  to  go 
to  the  war  but  who  permitted  Jim,  in  whom  he  was 
"jes'  wrapped  up,"  to  go.  A  comrade  tells  the  story. 
He  tells  how  the  "old  man  never  had  much  to  say." 
The  first  time  he  heard  him  speak  was  when  Jim 
joined  the  army: 

"And  all  'at  I  heerd  the  old  man  say 
Was,  jes'  as  we  turned  to  start  away,—- 
'Well,  good-by,  Jim : 

Take  keer  of  yourse'f !' " 

The  fond  father  appeared  to  be  satisfied  if  he 
could  just  look  at  Jim.  Therefore,  he  followed  him 
to  the  drill  ground  and  to  the  depot,  and  gave  him 
again  the 

"  Well,  good-by,  Jim : 

Take  keer  of  yourse'f !' " 

And  was  proud  when  "Cap.  Biggler"  wrote  home  of 
the  boy's  exploits  of  bravery.  You  can  feel  the 
touch  of  unutterable  homesickness  in  the  father's 
heart  for  Jim,  and  his  high  faith  in  him  in  the  fact 
that  he 

"Tuk  the  papers,  the  old  man  did, 

A-watchin'  fer  Jim — 
Fully  believin'  he'd  make  his  mark 

Some  way — jes'  wrapped  up  in  him  I" 


246      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

And  he  was  not  disappointed  either.  Jim  won  hon 
ors;  he  lost  an  arm;  he  became  a  lieutenant — till 
finally : 

"Think  of  a  private,  now,  perhaps, 

We'll  say  like  Jim, 
'At's  dumb  clean  up  to  the  shoulder-straps — 

And  the  old  man  jes'  wrapped  up  in  him  I 
Think  of  him — with  the  war  plum'  through, 
And  the  glorious  old  Red-White-and-Blue 
A-laughin'  the  news  down  over  Jim, 
And  the  old  man,  bendin'  over  him — 
The  surgeon  turnin'  away  with  tears 
'At  hadn't  leaked  fer  years  and  years, 
As  the  hand  of  the  dyin'  boy  clung  to 
His  father's,  the  old  voice  in  his  ears,— > 
*Well,  good-by,  Jim: 

Take  keer  of  yourse'f !' " 

As  another  instance  of  the  common  patriot's 
worth,  Mr.  Riley  has  given  us  "Decoration  Day  on 
the  Place."  It  is  one  of  his  "Benj.  F.  Johnson" 
Hoosier  dialect  poems.  Again  it  is  an  old  farmer 
talking.  It  is  Decoration  Day.  He  and  his  wife  see 
their  neighbors  driving  past  to  town.  But  this  old 
home-keeping  couple  have  never  attended  this  an 
nual  service.  The  old  man  is  telling  how  lonesome 
the  day  is  to  him  and  "Mother."  They  have  heard 
wonderful  tales  about  the  music  and  the  flowers  and 
the  orations  in  the  town.  But  these  sorrowing  par- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      247, 

ents  are  wondering  if  there  isn't  some  way  to  make 
"The  Boys"  know  that  every  day  on  earth  is  their 
Decoration  Day,  and  then: 

"We've  tried  that — me  and  Mother — whare  EHas  takes  his 

rest, 

In  the  orchurd — in  his  uniform,  and  hands  acrost  his  brest, 
And  the  flag  he  died  fer,  smilin'  and  a-ripplin'  in  the  breeze 
Above  his  grave — and  over  that, — the  robin  in  the  freest 

"And  yit  it's  lonesome — lonesome! — It's  a  Sund'y-day  to  me, 
It  'pears-like — more'n  any  day  I  nearly  ever  see! — 
Still,  with  the  Stars  and  Stripes  above,  a-flutterin*  in  the  air, 
On  ev'ry  soldier's  grave  I'd  love  to  lay  a  lily  thare." 

Sometimes  people  say  that  a  republic  is  ungrate 
ful,  and  soon  forgets  those  who  have  served  it  best. 
But  any  one  who  has  tramped  over  the  battle-fields 
of  Lexington  and  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill,  and  has 
seen  the  towering  columns  that  mark  the  spots 
where  the  sod  soaked  in  the  first  blood  spilt  for 
American  independence,  knows  that  the  American 
people  remember  the  heroic  deeds  of  the  noble  dead. 
Any  one  who  has  stood  in  Independence  Hall  in  the 
City  of  Brotherly  Love,  where,  Pallas-like,  a  new 
born  nation  sprang  into  giant  life,  and  notes  how  a 
grateful  people  preserve  the  historic  place  intact, 
knows  the  American  people  remember.  Any  one 
who  has  seen  at  our  nation's  Capital  the  highest 


248      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

monument  in  the  world,  built  by  a  loving  people  to 
the  memory  of  the  majestic  Washington,  knows  the 
American  people  remember.  Any  one  who  has  ob 
served  on  Memorial  Day  the  graves  of  our  soldier- 
dead  become  beds  of  flowers,  their  tombs  thrones  of 
honor,  knows  the  American  people  remember  whose 
forms  are  placed  within  their  narrow  walls. 

So  when  the  patriotic  movement  was  started  to 
erect  the  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Monument  at  Indian 
apolis,  Mr.  Riley  wrote  a  poem  in  sympathy  with  it. 
It  is  all  good ;  but  the  first  and  last  stanzas  are  suffi 
cient  to  discover  the  underlying  principle  of  all  these 
fit  memorials.  They  read  as  follows : 

"A  monument  for  the  Soldiers  I 

And  what  will  ye  build  it  of? 
Can  ye  build  it  of  marble,  or  brass,  or  bronze, 

Outlasting  the  Soldiers'  love? 
Can  ye  glorify  it  with  legends 

As  grand  as  their  blood  hath  writ 
From  the  inmost  shrine  of  this  land  of  thine 

To  the  outermost  verge  of  it? 

"A  monument  for  the  Soldiers! 

Built  of  a  people's  love, 
And  blazoned  and  decked  and  panoplied 

With  the  hearts  ye  build  it  of ! 
And  see  that  ye  build  it  stately, 

In  pillar  and  niche  and  gate, 
And  high  in  pose  as  the  souls  of  those 

It  would  commemorate  1" 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      249 

But  patriotism  by  no  means  exhausts  itself  in  war. 
There  is  good,  rugged  philosophy  in  the  Hoosier 
dialect  verses  entitled  "Thoughts  on  the  Late  War." 
The  "Late  War"  to  Riley  at  that  time  (1893)  was, 
of  course,  the  Civil  War.  Though  he  confesses : 
"I  was  for  Union — you  ag'in'  it,"  yet  since  the  war 
is  "all  done  and  ended,"  he  pleads  for  "some  pard- 
nership  forgittin',"  and  then  this  wholesome  advice : 

"Le'  's  let  up  on  this  blame',  infernal 
Tongue-lashin'  and  lap-jacket  vauntin', 
And  git  back  home  to  the  eternal 
Ca'm  we're  a-wantin'." 

With  like  motive,  but  in  more  chaste  language, 
our  poet  laureate  concluded  his  first  Decoration 
Day  poem  (referred  to  earlier  in  this  study)  in  these 
sweet  words : 

"And  in  the  holy  silence  reigning  round, 
While  prayers  of  perfume  bless  the  atmosphere, 

Where  loyal  souls  of  love  and  faith  are  found, 
Thank  God  that  Peace  is  here! 

"And  let  each  angry  impulse  that  may  start, 
Be  smothered  out  of  every  loyal  breast 

And,  rocked  within  the  cradle  of  the  heart, 
Let  every  sorrow  rest." 

And  at  another  time  he  rejoiced  that : 


250     THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"The  angel,  Peace,  o'er  all  uplifts  her  hand, 
Waving  the  olive,  and  with  heavenly  eyes 

Shedding  a  light  of  love  o'er  sea  and  land 
As  sunshine  from  the  skies." 

But  in  peace  as  in  war,  America  must  remember 
her  messianic  mission.  Her  peace  must  be  a  peace 
founded  upon  righteousness,  and  a  peace  that  is  safe 
for  Liberty — safe  "from  Occident  to  Orient."  Thus 
in  the  apostrophe  to  Independence  Bell  we  have  the 
exhortation : 

"Ring  out  the  wounds  of  wrong 

That  rankle  in  the  breast; 
Your  music  like  a  slumber-song 

Will  lull  revenge  to  rest. 

"Ring  out  from  Occident 

To  Orient,  and  peal 
From  continent  to  continent 

The  mighty  joy  you  feel. 

"Ring I    Independence  Bell! 

Ring  on  till  worlds  to  be 
Shall  listen  to  the  tale  you  tell 

Of  love  and  Liberty  1" 

Some  of  us  think  that  the  greatest  battle  hymn 
ever  written  is  Julia  Ward  Howe's  "Battle  Hymn 
of  the  Republic."  It  first  rang  out  high  above  the 
havoc  of  our  Civil  War.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      251 

Mrs.  Howe  certainly  must  have  been  divinely  in 
spired  when  she  wrote  it.  Many  feel  that  it  should 
be  our  national  anthem.  Indeed,  it  might  fittingly 
have  been  the  hymn  of  the  Entente  Allies.  As  an 
echo  of  that  great  hymn  Mr.  Riley  wrote  his  "Peace 
Hymn  of  the  Republic"  for  the  Twenty-ninth  En 
campment  of  the  G.  A.  R.,  held  at  Louisville,  Ken 
tucky,  in  1895.  The  figure  of  the  ship  upon  the  sea 
is  sustained  throughout — the  ship  of  state  that 
groped  through  the  awful  midnight  storm  of  war, 
until  the  One  who  stilled  the  storm  on  Galilee 
walked  over  our  troubled  waters,  and  put  His  hand 
upon  the  storm.  The  imagery  is  glowing.  Let  us 
sing  the  entire  hymn : 

"There's  a  Voice  across  the  Nation  like  a  mighty  ocean-hail, 
Borne  up  from  out  the  Southward  as  the  seas  before  the  gale; 
Its  breath  is  in  the  streaming  Flag  and  in  the  flying  sail — 
As  we  go  sailing  on. 

"  'Tis  a  Voice  that  we  remember- — ere  its  summons  soothed  as 

now — • 
When  it  rang  in  battle-challenge,  and  we  answered  vow  with 

vow — 
With  a  roar  of  gun  and  hiss  of  sword  and  crash  of  prow  and 

prow, 

As  we  went  sailing  on. 


252      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"Our  hope  sank,  even  as  we  saw  the  sun  sink  faint  and  far, — 
The  Ship  of  State  went  groping  through  the  blinding  smoke 

of  War — 
Through  blackest  midnight  lurching,  all  uncheered  of  moon 

or  star, 

Yet  sailing — sailing  on. 

"As  One  who  spake  the  dead  awake,  with  life-blood  leaping 

warm — 
Who  walked  the  troubled  waters,  all  unscathed,  in  mortal 

form — 

We  felt  our  Pilot's  presence  with  His  hand  upon  the  storm, 
As  we  went  sailing  on. 

"O  Voice  of  passion  lulled  to  peace,  this  dawning  of  To-day, 
O  Voices  twain  now  blent  as  one,  ye  sing  all  fears  away, 
Since  foe  and  foe  are  friends,  and  lo  1  the  Lord,  as  glad  as 
they,— 

He  sends  us  sailing  on." 

Yea,  verily,  peace  is  greatly  to  be  desired;  a 
peace  "pedestaled  on  Freedom's  soil."  But  we  might 
as  well  admit  it  one  time  as  another,  that  we  shall 
have  a  permanent  peace  for  our  own  blessed  land 
only  when  the  reign  of  Christ,  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
is  universal.  Therefore  with  our  national  bard  we 
pray: 

"O  blessed  land  of  labor  and  reward ! 

O  gracious  Ruler,  let  Thy  reign  endure; 
In  pruning-hook  and  plough-share  beat  the  sword, 
And  reap  the  harvest  sure !" 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET      253 

But  we  must  remind  ourselves  once  more  that 
America  is  the  "messiah  of  nations."  At  the  lay 
ing  of  the  cornerstone  of  Bunker  Hill  monument, 
that  mountain-minded  man,  Daniel  Webster,  said: 
"Our  history  hitherto  proves  that  the  popular  form 
of  government  is  practicable,  and  that  with  wisdom 
and  knowledge  men  may  govern  themselves;  and 
the  duty  incumbent  on  us  is,  to  preserve  the  consis 
tency  of  this  cheering  example,  and  take  care  that 
nothing  may  weaken  its  authority  with  the  world. 
If,  in  our  case,  the  representative  system  ultimately 
fail,  popular  governments  must  be  pronounced  im 
possible.  No  combination  of  circumstances  more 
favorable  to  the  experiment  can  ever  be  expected  to 
occur.  The  last  hope  of  mankind  therefore  rests 
with  us." 

We  must  make  good.  But  while  we  live  and 
fight  for  our  ideals  of  democracy  we  must  not  for 
get  God.  Israel  was  an  "elect  race";  but  Israel 
fumbled  its  destiny  in  the  "hour  of  visitation."  We 
must  hold  with  tenacity  to  the  forces  which  are  eter 
nal,  spiritual.  We  must  not  forget  God!  So  Mr. 
Riley  would  teach  us;  for  at  the  end  of  his  long 
poem  in  praise  of  Liberty,  he  says : 


254      THE  FAITH  OF  THE  PEOPLE'S  POET 

"And  with  Thy  praise,  we  breathe  a  prayer 
That  God  who  leaves  you  in  our  care 
May  favor  us  from  this  day  on 
With  Thy  dear  presence — till  the  dawn 
Of  Heaven,  breaking  on  thy  face, 
Lights  up  Thy  first  abiding-place." 


THE   END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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Form  L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444 


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2707    Faith  of  the 
M35>      people's  poet 


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